Abe and I woke up completely felled by our sickness. We have never skipped church as a family before, but today that decision felt medically necessary. We spent most of the day just trying to get better.
Abe was more energetic than I was, and I expect tomorrow the girls will call me “Daddy” for half the day. If I have been particularly absent on any given weekend, then the girls get used to putting forth all of their petitions to Daddy. It takes them about half a day to realize they can call for Mama and actually get a response.
Abe worked with Lydia for an hour today on reading and writing.
Lydia is crying because she wanted Abe to take a picture of the screen she wrote on before this one. He accidentally erased it. Oops!
Well, we are all officially sick now. I bought a ton of vitamins today in the hopes that we can start on the long road to recovery. I should have bought more tissues…
This morning Abe and I went to the temple, and then we came home and prepped for our meet-up with the Sorensons at Silver Lake in Big Cottonwood Canyon. The traffic was horrific, so we didn’t get a ton of time with them. But we sure enjoyed the visit we did squeeze in!
Cloud watching!This cloud looked just like a face!
I missed my early morning walk this morning, so I took the girls for a two and a half hour walk to Target. By the end, I was ready for bed.
This evening we headed to Park City to check out my friend Paige’s art show at the Meyer Gallery. We ended up taking Ada with us on a trolley ride for a little bit. Lydia and Ada traded knock-knock jokes the whole time and laughed their heads off. Mary watched them wistfully and cuddled me the whole time. Sometimes I feel really bad that she doesn’t have as many friends as Lydia…but the extra cuddles are nice.
Waiting for the trolley.
Paige’s art is actually really bright and visually arresting in person. Somehow these pictures made her art seem darker than they really are.
When both girls woke up sick this morning, I cancelled gymnastics, preschool and my doctor’s appointment. Instead of running around all day, we had a stay-at-home-and-try-to-get-better day. Both girls seem better this evening, but I wonder if that’s just their adrenal cycle. I hope they’re better!
Since my house has been cleaned and cleaned and cleaned again ever since the lice discovery, I didn’t have many chores today. I focused my energy on reading to the girls and cooking. Of course, I also spent a lot of time in bed.
Abe had a phenomenal day at work today. Sales is such a roller coaster.
Since Mary woke up sad from her sore throat this morning, I made blueberry waffles with fruit smiley faces. That and our trusty Throat Coat herbal tea seemed to help get the day off to a better start.
I think I am nesting. I spent most of my free time cleaning and decorating today. While I really wish I could get around to finishing the play room and whipping the nursery into shape, those are too high budget right now to finish. That’s okay, though! I can look at those rooms and see something different in my mind, and for now that feels pretty satisfying. Plus, daydreaming is half the fun.
Here’s what I did do today. I should have taken pictures in the day when lighting is better, but it was kind of a busy day. I didn’t get around to taking these until just now.
I got this beautiful framed quote from the Miners. I love it! I put it on the mantel right when I got home, and because I kept looking at it, I realized my mantel was otherwise bare. To rectify the situation,i first bought this wood and metal piece a couple days ago. I feel like there is so much symbolism in trees, and the picket fence reminds me of my morning walks around Orem.I bought this today. I don’t have a ton of holiday decorations, but I figure I can switch out the inside of the dome according to the season. That will be my domestic nod to seasonality.The girls and I went to a really cute nursery today and bought some succulents. Abe and I feel bad for any houseplants we own because we’ve killed them all. I hope we can at least keep succulents alive. They can’t be nearly as hard as keeping kids alive, right?
For the downstairs living area, all I really need now are some birch logs for the fireplace and a big plant for the corner by the big window. It’s tempting to just finish it off. We’ll see how badly I continue to feel the nesting urge.
I forgot to take pictures today, but I do have a sad and sweet anecdote. Today was Lydia’s first day of Let’s Play Music, and the teacher sent her home with a red balloon. She ran downstairs to show Mary, who promptly came up the stairs sobbing huge crocodile tears because she wanted to go to Lydia’s special music class and get a red balloon. She even told me that she had grown bigger and that meant she could go.
My heart can’t take Mary’s tears, so I wrapped up one of her birthday present puzzles and gave it to her while Lydia was at preschool. We did the puzzle together, and then Mary ran around with Lydia’s balloon for the rest of the day. Lydia had other things on her mind. She wanted us to play “frog in the middle” and act out the puppet show to Carmen that the teacher taught them. We did all that after dinner.
I was a little impatient with Lydia today. She did a lot of crying and screaming, and no matter how I prep myself to be patient in such moments, I really struggle to be kind.
This morning I asked Lydia what she wanted to do today, and she suggested we go to a dinosaur museum. I just so happened to know that BYU has a museum of paleontology, and so after breakfast we headed over.
You would have thought the girls were in a princess fairy land. Mary spent the whole time jumping up and down and squealing, “Mama, come look at THIS dinosaur!! He’s soooo big!” Lydia raced around to everything too. She loved that a brontosaurus had a horn as tall as she is.
Then we went to Pier 1 because our shoe situation in the entry hall was desperate. I found this basket, and it has made the house feel so much more organized!
I also found the perfect piece for our fireplace, but we hung it at 10:30 pm and were rushing to get to bed, so I didn’t get a picture. My phone is out of memory, but if I can figure out how to fix that, I will take a picture tomorrow.
For FHE we headed over to our neighbors’ house down the street. The Bishops are an awe-inspiring family. You never know what people have suffered until you learn their story. Before our dinner with them, I just judged on appearance and figured they were leading and had always led a story-book LDS life. While they are absolute saints and could easily pass for story-book heroes…boy, was I wrong about my assessment! They have passed and are passing through things I could literally not imagine going through. Abe and I left in awe and wonder at their resilience.
We also had a great time. The kids and Abe played for hours in their pool. They keep it at ninety degrees, so no one got cold!
We finished off with Dairy Queen. The kids were so distracted by the Bishops’ pool and magical yard full of kid attractions that they barely ate any dinner. Then it was home to de-lousify everyone before bed, hang my new picture, and (for Abe) finish up his work day.
Today I after sacrament meting I took the girls home because of the lice–and Lydia is sick. We did sit in the chapel today for the first time in over a month, and I couldn’t believe how smoothly it went. Maybe we’ll be so bold as to try again next week.
The Miners were so nice and celebrated my birthday tonight since we were gone during their June celebration. We took pictures (of the girls) but they didn’t come through to my email. I will amend this post tomorrow if they ever come through.
The girls have never played a video game before. They sat in their chairs demurely and didn’t press any of the buttons. I think they also enjoyed watching what happened when Henry pressed his buttons.
The lice battle continues. Yesterday I was up until 1 am cleaning the house, and today we have been busy with treatments and blow-drying. I am giving the girls a small break before I go at Mary’s hair again before church.
Yesterday we checked out the Springville Reservoir. It has a sandy beach where the kids can play, and we enjoyed it a lot. I felt anxious about all of the kids swimming in regular diapers without plastic pants–especially since there is no water flow in a reservoir. For that reason we might not make a habit of going there regularly. Also, I should have taken a picture in the other direction. The reservoir is at the base of the mountains, so if you look the other way all you see are mountains. It was actually quite scenic, although in the picture the beach appears to be slightly underwhelming.
We also organized the last bastion of blatant untidiness in our house yesterday. I should have taken a before picture, but here’s the after:
Note that we have a “skin and scalp” bin. I thought I was hyper-vigilant before this outbreak, but now I feel committed to being doubly so. The irony is that Mary contracted lice this time on our trip, and that is the ONLY break I have taken in the past year from her regular anti-lice shampoo and conditioner. Normally, she gets a bath every other day and I scrub her scalp with Paul Mitchell’s tea tree oil shampoo. Afterward I use a special rosemary-extract infused anti-lice leave-in conditioner on her. This past trip I didn’t bring those products along and boom! we have lice again. We’ve learned our lesson this time.
The second treatment! I feel confident the lice are eradicated by now.
This morning I took the three hour diabetes test…and passed! Also, I brought my kids to the doctor’s office for the test and could not have been happier with them. They were so good and patient. We went out for a picnic with Abe afterward and then I proceeded to retire to bed until dinner. The girls just entertained themselves the whole time, and I am so grateful for them.
At one of the new gardens of the new Qualtrics building (where we ate our picnic):
I got a Groupon for dinner since I spent the whole afternoon in bed. We went to a pizzeria:
Then I had book club. Abe took the girls to the park while I was at book club.
