This morning, after scriptures and a run on the treadmill (thank-you, daylight savings!!), I knocked out Mary’s birthday thank-you notes. Lydia helped. The evidence of her help can currently be seen across the whole floor, which is covered in stationary and envelopes. I haven’t had time to pick them up, because right after we did the notes, I took Lydia on my lap and we watched a ton of piano performances on youtube. I called up the the PianoForte Foundation and got details on their May 2014 amateur piano competition, and I think I’m going to enter. Lydia and I watched many videos in an attempt to try to figure out times of various piece combinations for different rounds.
Obviously, I’ve gone off the deep end in the self-actualization department. Cooking school, piano competitions…this, I think, is what happens when you finally start getting somewhat consistent sleep at night after almost three straight years of deprivation. All of the sudden, the world is my oyster! I can do whatever I want, because I have ENERGY! And my babies can entertain themselves, so I have TIME!! Wow. I feel like I’m in front of a smorgasbord of possibilities, and I want to do it ALL. Because, you know, eventually I will have more babies, and then it will be back to square one (counting the shower as my major accomplishment of the day…um, ugh.).
Anyway, after watching the videos–and eventually, Lydia got bored and slid off my lap to play with her magnetic doll while I stayed riveted in front of youtube–I decided to get a head start on dinner. Once again, Lydia was happy to help, and we made some delicious challah together. (Of course, there were tantrums along the way, and I spent the rest of the day feeling like The World’s Worst Mom for yelling at her.)
- Lydia helped braid that!
Then it was lunch time. After lunch, the girls played upstairs together while I practiced. There was a talk in General Conference a while back where one speaker shared the story of how his infant son died because he aspirated a piece of chalk while the parents were in a different room. This talk plays in my head continually while I practice, and so every couple minutes I call up to make sure everyone is still alive and breathing. I would love for the girls to play in the same room as the piano, but there’s no door between the piano and the stairs, and so when they’re in the room with me, I am constantly running to the stairs to make sure Mary doesn’t take a tumble. It’s pretty annoying. So this is the best I can do, for now.
I let Lydia skip her nap today because I could tell she wasn’t tired, and so instead she entertained herself while I practiced some more.
Then she helped me prep some squash for roasting. After that, I finally took the time to read some books to her; she hasn’t left the house for two days and was begging to go to the library today…sorry, but since it snowed, the closest I wanted to get to accommodating her wish was reading her the books we checked out on Saturday.
Then we traipsed downstairs where I fed her dinner, and then I tried to feed Mary dinner.
Mary refused to eat anything I put in front of her, so finally I just let both kids scream for forty minutes while I finished cleaning the kitchen and prepping the rest of dinner. Abe’s arrival home made all of us feel better, and after we ate dinner (again), I practiced the piano again until bedtime. Then it was clean the kitchen time (which meant I ate the equivalent of dinner #3 while picking up).
Tomorrow Abe is going to teach preschool because…I have my orientation to culinary school!!!! I can’t wait!!!!!