Today thus far

Em's hair brushed, Gee's shoes on, Zee's lunch finished. Wave goodbye to Em, Zee, and Bradley, look for Gee's bus. Clear last night's dinner dishes, put Gee on bus. Get breakfast for Hebs. Sweep dining room floor. Pick up baby toys, mail, and church bags off living room floor. Vacuum living room. Put dishes in dishwasher, wipe off counters and stove. Clean toy room. Get Yum-Yum up, changed, and nursed. Laundry started, beds made. It's 9:15.

Next up: Breakfast for Momma, and try Yum-Yum on some Real Food That Isn't Mashed Potatoes (which is the only thing she willingly allows between her lips, besides Momma's milk).

By the way, Yum-Yum popped out another tooth yesterday. And was a crank ALL DAY LONG. But she actually sleep for hours and hours last night, hooray hoorah!

Something in the air...

...made today a not-so-great-day. Kids were tired and grumpy, I was tired and grumpy, and it was just a dull, yucky day.

Fortunately, my husband fetched Little Caesars Pizza for dinner, I got to spend a couple of hours with a good friend, and tomorrow is another day. Good night all!

Advertising and Peer Pressure Really Work

So...we're trying to let the kids manage their own money. (Within reason, as they have to be in kindergarten before they can spend without permission, and they have to pay tithing.) To that end, once they realized they had enough money from Grandma Peter's Christmas presents, we all trooped over to Macey's to buy (generic) Pillow Pets.

They are THRILLED. Each got to hand the cashier their money, each got their change back. (And then dropped it all over the floor of the store. Sigh.) Hopefully this is a good choice for them. We'll see--it is astonishingly hard for me to let them do this. I guess I'm more of a control freak then I realized.

Eight Months Old

(Em has very translucent skin; when she was little, and eating sweet potatoes and squash and stuff, her face (and nose especially) became very orange. It was amusing.)

Hurricane Hebs

Hebs particularly loves to write on the walls.  Whenever I find him doing this, or discover the pictograms later, he has to wash the walls.

Today I found him standing by the front door.  "I washing the walls, Momma!" he beamed.

Sure enough, in one hand he held a contraband pencil, and in the other he held a baby wipe.  As I stood there, bemused, he scribbled on the wall, and then carefully rubbed the wipe over the drawing.

He runs me ragged, but he makes me smile.  What more could the momma of a two-year-old want?

John Williams is the Man (by Moosebutter)

Seen at my Pharmacy

Frazzled

Before having kids I didn't understand how deeply affecting a baby's cry is, how it completely frazzles a mother's brain, and in a way that seems to bypass gender equity. When my baby is crying I can't deal with my keys not fitting easily in a lock, my misplaced water bottle, or a sticky stroller brake, and I sure as **** can't deal well with Bea throwing rocks. Even in the short space between my children's infancies I forgot how hard it is to breathe when my baby is crying. And I'm assuming that if I forgot then the mothers glaring at me as I packed up my freakshow at the creek also forgot. And I'm assuming that all those sweet folks who long for baby kisses have forgotten or never were the primary caretaker to two kids so young.--from Jjust Kidding

I found this passage to be profoundly true. When Yum-Yum (or any of my children when they were infants) cries, my whole focus narrows. Even if I do my best to ignore it, I'm frazzled.

Her cries don't seem to trouble her father in the same way. Nor do I feel the same way when my sister's baby cries, or a friend's child. I think mothers are hard-wired to feel this way. I imagine it is a good thing, although it is hard to believe that at 3:30 am.

Read the whole thing, as they say. (Caution, some language.)

Blessed Sabbath Lightshow

When I was in high school, I noticed something interesting about days on which I overslept. Because early morning seminary started at 6:15 am, and it took about 25 minutes to get from our house to the church, I would usually wake up around 5:00 am. Every so often, however, I would oversleep, and wake up at 5:30, or 5:40, or even (gasp) almost 6:00. Obviously, this would make for a frantic five or ten minutes. But then, magically, once I was in the car headed for seminary, the day was usually an amazing day. Maybe it was because the day didn't have anywhere to go but up.

This is all a round-about way of saying I woke up late this morning. Bradley has early morning meetings, and we generally meet him at the church. So when I woke up at 8:00 am, and had five children to feed and dress (not to mention getting myself ready) by 8:30--well, there was some serious frantic scrambling. But we did it, and made it up to the church by 8:40. Not bad, and there was no maternal yelling, either. Score!

And it was an amazing day.

Church was fantastic: My children were (relatively) well behaved, the lessons and talks were marvelous, and choir practice was great. Zee gave a wonderful (and funny) talk about Joseph Smith in Senior Primary. The afternoon was relaxing (no nap, though), the children adorable and fun. Bradley read church books to me while I lounged on the couch. Dinner was simple and yummy, and the kids actually ate and appreciated it (for once).

But I think my favorite part was right before bedtime.

We got ready for bed about fifteen minutes early. I pulled out my old laser pointer, put in batteries in it, and gave the kids each a little flashlight of their own. Then we went into the boys' room, turned off the light, and laid down on the floor.

The kids were entranced with the laser pointer. I made the light fixture glow an eerie red, I "drew" letters and shapes on the ceiling, and I pointed in different corners and had them follow me with their flashlights. We sang songs ("Teach Me to Walk in the Light", "Twinkle, Twinkle", "I am Like a Star", and "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam") and kept the beat with our lights. Everyone got a (careful) turn playing with the laser on the ceiling. We ended by shoving the flashlights into our mouths and lighting up our faces. (And then looking in the mirror and giggling madly.)

"Light Camp" was what Gee decided our adventure was called, and it was so much fun. Seriously. The kids were involved and engaged the whole time (even Yum-Yum, who laid on her back next to me the whole time and barely made a peep, so fascinated was she), and nobody fought or annoyed one another. (That's a rare enough occurrence that it bears mentioning!)

What a marvelous day!

Stream-of-Thought

So, the ceiling in the bathroom didn't fall in, which is good. Now, if we can just get the roof fixed before it collapses, that would be very nice. Don't you think?

I got to spend several hours with one of my best friends, Emily, last night. She gave birth to her first child, M., on Wednesday, eleven weeks early. M. is only 2 lbs 10 oz, but she's a fighter, and doing well. Emily called at about eight pm, and on a whim I asked if it was a good time for me to come up and visit. It turned out well, actually, because the baby is at a different hospital then Emily, and her husband was just about to leave Emily to go be with the baby. So I got to keep her company, and we chatted about babies, and life, and geology, and everything. It's been a couple of weeks since we've had a chance to talk, and it was great to just hang out together. Hopefully Emily was released from the ICU today, and then she'll have to be in a regular room for a couple of more days, and then she'll get to go be with her baby girlie.

Today the kids didn't have school, so we spent the day up with Telima in Salt Lake Valley. We met up at IKEA and had breakfast (yummy, cheap, perfect), and then let the big kids play in at the childcare place, while the littles played with the toys. Then we went to Telima's apartment and just spent time together, while the kids played quite nicely. I wish we lived closer to each other.

Goodness! What a thrown-together post! I'm so tired I can't keep my eyes open, so I'm going to post it anyway.

Carl, Canning, and Ceilings

Today the two oldest kids and I went to the Carl Bloch exhibit at BYU's Museum of Art. It was pretty fun, but also pretty short. That's okay, because my children's attention spans were pretty short, too.

Then I went to the Springville Cannery and dry-pack canned zillions and zillions of pounds of food storage. Okay, not zillions, but my part alone was 60 cans. Ooops. A little much, I think. Regardless, I am feeling SOOOO happy and relieved to have it. It's nowhere close to a year's supply, but it's a worthy start.

And then tonight, after my Relief Society meeting, I went into our upstairs bathroom and heard...the plink plink plink of water hitting the ceiling. Our roof is leaking. Sigh. Let's hope I don't awake to a collapsed ceiling in the morning. I'm hoping the rain turns into snow sooner rather than later. Guess we'll be fixing the roof this month.

Tooth!

The baby formally known as "Mimi", henceforth to be known as "Yum-Yum*", has discarded her babyish toothless grin in favor of a tiny, barely-there tooth. (Good thing I got all those toothless pictures on Sunday!) Front bottom left, at seven months one week.

All of my kids popped out their bottom front teeth before their top front teeth. Is that pretty normal?

Hebs: Seven months, two weeks, front bottom two
Gee: Nine months, three and a half weeks, bottom left
Em: Six months, three and a half weeks, front bottom right
Zee: Nine months, front bottom right

*Bradley has never loved "Mimi" for a blog nickname for our baby girlie. I call her "Yum-Yum" all the time anyway, but it's not a nickname I expect to carry through her life. So "Yum-Yum" she is.

Also, congratulations today to my dear friend Emily and her husband Martin, and their brand-new baby girl. Love you all!

Chores, Work, and Money

We're starting something new in our family right now, and I'm really kind of excited about it.

Lately, I've been impressed with the importance of teaching my children how to deal with money. I've seen what happens when people don't grasp the importance of money management, and it's really sad. It can tear families apart, make life so much harder, and really eat away at your self-worth. Bradley and I have created a plan to start to teach our children about money and work.

Everyone in our family has certain chores that must be done on a daily basis. For the kids, these chores include picking up after themselves, clearing their dishes after dinner, putting clean clothes away, etc. These are "personal" chores, and the children don't get paid for them.

They can, however, get paid for doing my chores. We made a list of twelve "paying" chores:

1. Clean up toys with which the younger kids played
2. Help with the dishes after dinner (clearing and wiping the table, putting the chairs in place)
3. Vacuum the kitchen floor with the dustbuster
4. Vacuum the dining room floor (especially under the table) with the dustbuster
5. Pick up trash in the yard
6. Help with one load of laundry
7. Find all the dishes in the house and put in the kitchen
8. Make your own bed
9. Unload the dishwasher
10. Empty room garbage cans
11. Help clean one bathroom
12. Wipe down walls of one room, including baseboards

For each of these chores, the child can get 25 cents. Not every chore will be available everyday, and they will have to check with me before starting a chore if they expect to get paid for it.

And (this is my very favorite part), the flip side of the plan. If they don't complete one of their personal chores, after I have given them fair warning, and I have to do it, then they have to pay me 25 cents. (For some reason, this delights me beyond all that is logical.)

I picked up $40 worth of quarters at the bank today, and, using baby food jars, we made little banks for each child. Every time they do a chore, they get 25 cents in their jar. Once a week, we will split up the money in their jars for tithing, saving, and spending.

When I told the children about the opportunities they will have for earning money, their faces lit right up. If they had been a cartoon, their eyes would have been dollar signs. Remember the pillow pet? It's on all their lists. (Also: donuts, computer games.)

This is going to be FUN. (I hope.)

This is my Yum-Yum

Isn't she sweet?

1-800-222-2111

Today I called Poison Control.

(It's the second time I've called Poison Control--three years ago Gee got into some bath gel balls, the kind that dissolve in hot water, and gnawed them. Fortunately, there were no ill effects from his foray into smelly soaps.)

Em was playing at a friend's house. When she came home, she was full of excitement about the "veggies" she had eaten. When I asked her what the veggies were, she wasn't sure what they were called.

"But they were in the garden, Momma. We picked them."

Now, it's very early spring right now. I haven't even seen a crocus flower yet, much less a vegetable. Upon further questioning, I ascertained that the girls had been alone while eating these vegetables--no adults had been around. So Em and I went for a little walk over to B.'s house so she could show me the veggies.

There, in front of B.'s front door, were a bunch of sadly munched little green sprigs. I don't know what kind they are--daffodil, tulip, or crocus--but they definitely are NOT veggies. I spoke with B.'s mom, and we decided I would call Poison Control--B., being older (and wiser?), had chewed the leaves, "but I didn't swallow. Em did, though!"

So I called Poison Control, feeling a little silly, but wanting to be sure. It turns out that spring flower sprigs are not poisonous, whichever they are. (The bulbs are slightly irritating to the stomach, but not deadly.) The guy on the other end of the phone got a good laugh about it, though, when I told him I would have expected an almost-six-year-old not to just graze on random plants. He told me that it sounded like a pretty normal thing for a kindergartner to do.

Then Em and I had a brief heart-to-heart, in which she promised not to eat ANYTHING from a bush or a tree or a plant without first asking Momma or Daddy. This is not a conversation I would have expected needing to have with my children.

Kids. They have a way of throwing the unexpected at you.

If a Tree Falls in the Park...

For six years, two majestic trees stood watch over our park, our street, our house:


Tragically, the massive pre-Christmas snowstorm dealt a mighty blow to the southern tree:


Though we tried to deny it, we knew that it was not likely that the tree would survive such a mortal wound.


Sure enough, yesterday they came to deliver the coup de grâce. It was a long, painful, and messy process.


Soon it was but a memory. But the sap of one tree wasn't enough to sate the appetite of fate. The northern tree, weakened by the loss of its brother, fell victim to the same fate:


And now, the wind whistles mournfully, untroubled by the branches and needles of the mighty trees. They are gone.


But at least we got a good blog post out of it!

It's a Pillow! It's a Pet!

(I put this on Facebook, but it was too funny not to put here, too.)

Zee: "Please, Momma, I want a pillow pet. Everyone else has one!"
Me: "Everyone else had a Cabbage Patch Kid, too."
Zee: "What?"
Me: "Nevermind, dear."

(It's true, I never had a Cabbage Patch Kid, and I survived. And I'm having a hard time even thinking about spending $19.95 (plus shipping and handling!) on a pillow OR stuffed animal. Per child. Yikes.)

Puppy, shark, jaguar

Today I took care of a baby puppy, who was sometimes a baby shark, and at least once a baby jaguar. Sometimes I was just Momma, but sometimes I was the momma shark (chomp chomp) or the momma doggie (bark, bark), but never the momma jaguar (I don't know why).

I don't really need a pet with Gee and his imagination around.

I Hope They Call Me on a Mission

For Family Home Evening tonight, we talked about missions and missionary work, and wrote letters to Bradley's nephew Ty, on a mission in Texas.

Well, Zee and Em wrote letters; Gee and Hebs scrawled colorfully across the paper. Zee's letter was quite nice--he hopes Ty's mission is going well, informed him that in school he is learning about coins, and in church he is learning the Articles of Faith. Em wrote that she hopes that she gets called on a mission someday.

When the kids say their prayers at night, they pray for "Cousin-Ty-on-his-mission." Indeed, I don't think Hebs realizes the phrase is five separate words--most of the time he says it all-in-one. When Grandma and Grandpa were on their mission in the West Indies, the bigger kids remembered them in the nightly prayers as well. When Em would say her prayers, the phrase "in Trinidad and Tobago" became "turned into a bagel". (We were grateful Grandma and Grandpa didn't come home as pastry.)

I hope my children will want to serve missions--I know my daughters may not choose to, and it may not be possible for Gee to serve a traditional mission. But there is no harm in preparing each of them to do so. In October conference, President Monson said,

Young men, I admonish you to prepare for service as a missionary. Keep yourselves clean and pure and worthy to represent the Lord. Maintain your health and strength. Study the scriptures. Where such is available, participate in seminary or institute. Familiarize yourself with the missionary handbook Preach My Gospel.

Such a course of study can only be for the good. I'm grateful that, while my children are still so young, they have good examples in Grandma and Grandpa and cousin Ty.

The answer is not forthcoming

Gee is sitting in his booster chair at the table. Em is wandering around the dining room.
Em: *whining* Momma! Gee just hit me seven times!
Me: Why did you stand there and let him?
Em: *Just looks at me*
________________

Upon seeing, among the paper cuttings on the floor, several locks of hair:
Me: Em!!!! Why did you cut your hair??
Em: *Just looks at me, clearly stumped*

Teasing update

I spoke with Zee's teachers today briefly--apparently "Austin" is a bit of a troublemaker. She likes to go from kid to kid, teasing and pushing and poking. (Literal as well as metaphorical poking, it seems.) I guess Zee has been her target recently. I feel comfortable that the teachers are aware of the situation and that it has been "dealt with," in the words of Ms. C. I'm not so pleased that they didn't respond to my email, and that I had to drag all four of the younger kids in so I could make sure they received it, but all things considered that's a pretty minor complaint.

You'd better believe that I'll be keeping an eye and ear out for any further developments, though.

First Prunes

Today I tried to give Mimi her first food. She's almost seven months old, and I'm hopeful that she will start sleeping though the night if I can just fill that belly of hers. The only baby food I have in the house, however, are the pureed prunes I keep to help Gee's digestion.

Mimi was unimpressed with this option. She never once opened her mouth. I got a little on her lips (she did lick that off, with a perplexed expression on her face), a little on her cheeks, a little more on her hands, and a lot on her bib.

All-in-all, it went as well as can be expected. Perhaps I'll go get some carrots or squash or green beans. Maybe those will go down a little easier.

Teasing too far?

There's this girl in Zee's first grade class--we'll call her Austin, not because her name is Austin but because her name is also usually a boy's name. "Austin" has been giving Zee some trouble lately. He has come home sad at least five times because of her teasing--three in the last two weeks alone.

The first several times he complained about Austin, I told him to ignore her. Apparently she chases him at recess. (Does that mean she likes him? They are in first grade, people!) Yesterday, however, he was in tears at the end of school, because she had been really mean to him prior to the bell. Apparently they had been sent to fetch the lunch box basket from the lunchroom, and on the way back, she ripped the basket away from him (they were both carrying it), scraping his hand. Since this happened in the hallway, no teacher saw what happened. Zee yelled, and then got in trouble for yelling in the hallway.

I spoke briefly to the student teacher, Ms. C., and asked her to please keep an eye on any Zee-and-Austin interactions. I really wasn't sure the situation warranted anything else, because I know my son is oversensitive and over-reactionary.

Then, today after school, while Zee was coming out the doors, I watched a little girl walking behind him. She reached into his open backpack, and carefully pulled out his lunchbox. She then immediately turned around and started walking the other way. (I should note that he has temporarily lost his lunchbox twice in the last two weeks--we had assumed it had simply fallen out of his backpack. Now, I wonder.)

I called out. "Hey, Zee, your lunchbox! Please give that back to him!"

The little girl spun back around, her eyes wide. She shoved the lunchbox at Zee.

"Why did you take his lunchbox out of his backpack?" I asked her, walking quickly over to them.

"It fell out!" she said.

"No, it did not. I watch you take it out. Don't do that again, please." I imagine I was fairly stern, but honestly, I was more surprised than anything else.

"It fell out!" she said again, and walked quickly away.

"Who was that, Zee?" I asked him.

"Oh, that was Austin," he answered.

Of course.

We had a little talk on the way home, and we decided that he'll try to stay away from Austin from now on, and he'll try to remember to zip up his backpack. And I'm going to write a little email to his teachers, give them a heads-up, and ask them to not put Zee and Austin together for any tasks, if possible. I don't think she had anything more than teasing in mind this afternoon, but I'm not okay with that. Zee doesn't like school as it is (a whole 'nother situation), and Austin is not helping.

First grade, people. And I've got four more after him. Yikes.

Don't Go to Heaven

Four-year-old Gee is a very literal child. This sometimes creates problems, as it did today:

The telephone rang. Bradley, picking it up, commented to me that the caller ID says, "Church of Jesus". Knowing it is either the ward executive secretary or the bishop, he answered saying, "Church of Jesus!" He then proceeded to have a normal, church-business-related conversation.

In the meantime, Gee looked up at me. "Daddy is talking to Jesus?" Laughing, I tried to explain, but he had it firmly in his head. Daddy was on the phone with Jesus.

Once Bradley was done with his phone call, I had him try to explain. "No, Gee, I wasn't on the phone with Jesus. That was my friend, Bro. B."

"Where is Jesus?" Gee asked.

"In heaven with Heavenly Father." Daddy explained.

"I want to see Jesus!"

"You will, but not until you are old and die and go up to heaven," said Daddy.

Gee's eyes got very wide. "I don't want to die! I don't want to see Jesus!"

We comforted him. "Sweetie, don't be sad, it isn't something you have to worry about right now. And when you do go to heaven, you'll be with Jesus and Heavenly Father and Momma and Daddy!"

That seemed to get through. However, a few seconds later, I stood up and prepared to run to the store. "Okay, I'm going to go now, see you in a while."

Gee, panicked, grabbed at me. "DON'T GO TO HEAVEN!!!"