reading to my children – Page 15

dinosaurs, Dead Sea Scrolls, and dinner delayed

This morning I took the girls to the dinosaur play area at City Creek. I told the girls I would bring them yesterday because Misty’s play group was meeting there, but then I started feeling tired and slightly sick that I had to renege on my promise. They had fun today, though.

Then I took them to church and dropped Lydia off at nursery while Mary and I attended a lecture from a BYU professor/Dead Sea Scroll scholar on the Dead Sea Scrolls. I was a little late, but what I heard was fantastic. This wasn’t his most important or emphasized point, but he did point out that a lot of Book of Mormon names which were completely unfamiliar to Joseph Smith and everyone else at the time of the translation of the Book of Mormon (some of which had been used by anti-Mormons to prove the Church was not true) show up in the Dead Sea Scrolls. For example, critics used to say that Alma, the Book of Mormon prophet, had the name of a South American woman; when the Dead Sea Scrolls were interpreted, Alma comes up as the name of a Hebrew prince.

The professor said he was going to give a lecture at 4pm today on the historicity of Job. Every part of me was DYING to drive to Provo and sit in on his lecture–to which he invited all of us–but, alas, that was not practical. So instead, we headed home, ate lunch, took long naps, and cooked food. Specifically, I spent two hours doing simple standard breading and baking to three eggplants. I streamlined the process as much as I could, and yet two full hours later, there I was, still dealing with the eggplant. Perhaps the fact that I was also feeding children had something to do with that, but still. It was ridiculous. I didn’t even make the rest of the dish; instead I told Abe to fend for himself for dinner and plan on having eggplant Parmesan tomorrow.

After dinner, I got my first real burst of energy of the whole day (it happened none too early at 8 pm) and cleaned the downstairs for the arrival of my home teacher from Chicago, Brother Richardson. He is flying in for Roots Tech, which starts tomorrow. While I was cleaning away, Abe was upstairs bathing and playing with the girls. Here is a picture he took:

Mary loves, loves, loves to brush her teeth...and tongue. — Mary loves, loves, loves to brush her teeth…and tongue.

bed and book

Abe and I were reminiscing just now about my old dog, Lulu. I got her as a six week old lab puppy four months before I met Abe, and Abe just now remarked what great preparation she was for having kids. During the time I had her, I never once got a full night’s sleep (usually she’d have potty runs around midnight and then again around 4am, and often would not sleep in between), and a bunch of my favorite clothes and personal items were chewed to death. I was constantly sweeping my studio apartment to keep the mess of dog hair at bay. The parallels are there, but then I remembered: I gave Lulu away. I would never, ever give my children away, but I guess the point is, it’s not in my nature to endure messes, chaos, and interrupted sleep without feeling kind of maxed out at times.

Today was a maxed-out day. Basically, I just gave up and spent the whole day reading in bed while my children tore apart the upstairs around me. They seemed to enjoy their activity, and even though now Lydia’s entire bed is colored on and I’m discovering toothpaste all over, it felt like what the doctor ordered. The craziest part is that I just can’t wait to get back to bed.

I did interrupt my self-imposed bed rest to feed the children multiple times, clean the kitchen multiple times, bake cookies with Lydia, and make another sweet potato souffle…but there are thirteen hours between when Lydia wakes up and when she goes to sleep again, and those activities aren’t that long in comparison. Basically, I’m not exaggerating when I say I spent most of today in bed.

Abe and I chatted while he ate dinner after the girls went to bed. It’s been so long since we got to talk over a meal, I’d almost forgotten what it felt like. He loves his new job and is so thankful to have work friends. He gets a whole hour at lunch to play games, socialize, read scriptures, call home, and eat. And he goes in an hour early and stays an hour late (on days when I don’t have cooking school) so that he can get everything done that he wants to. He hasn’t felt this healthy in eleven years. It’s a really thrilling career change for him, and it makes me SO happy to hear my husband effuse over his work situation.

Here are some pictures from this evening, when Lydia decided she wanted to learn how to jump rope:

Mary struggled a bit more to catch on to the concept…but she (clearly) had fun.

preschool and Monday morning parenting

I dropped Lydia off at preschool this morning and then did a ton of errands with Mary. I lost my phone a week ago, so I have no way of taking pictures on the go (unless I want to risk taking my big camera and losing it too!). If I could have taken a picture, though, I would have taken one of Mary in Sprouts. The cashier gave her a balloon, and her wide-eyed fixation on it was so cute; her eyes got even bigger when she let go of the balloon and watched it float up to the ceiling. Another cashier felt sorry for her and tied a new balloon to her wrist, and she looked at nothing else until I wriggled it off of her an hour later.

Then at lunch I got curious and asked Lydia what her favorite things in the whole world are. These are her responses, in order: 1) coloring, 2) playing with her cat, 3) cooking with me, 4) playing with the letters on the fridge. Her responses were really quick, so I think that means they must be sincere. I hope they are, at least, since #3 warmed my heart.

I spent the rest of the day slightly irritable–just like yesterday! I was feeling pretty low when Anique called and asked if she could drop off some soup and tortellini. Seeing her made me happy, as did eating her food. But then I started feeling bad again because I had the HARDEST time being patient with Lydia. She ate six meals today, and between meals 3 and 4 she snacked continually. The constant catering and cleaning made me crazy, but I feel like I should feed her when she says she’s hungry because Abe eats all day long, and I figure maybe she inherited a need for continual nourishment from him.

Class tonight was great, though. I learned why food turns brown and about the effect of acid and alkili on different groups of vegetables. We also did a bunch of food safety videos because after this class, we get some sort of food handling permit (if we pass the test).

While I was gone, the girls opened a letter from my mom. She sent Lydia cat stickers and Mary a butterfly card. Apparently, the girls loved their gifts from Nana and spent a lot of time playing with them. (Lydia put cat stickers all over her coloring book, and Mary walked around with her butterfly card.)

Then I came home and saw this:

Lydia crafted this bird at preschool. She kept trying to show Abe her bird all evening, but he was on the phone with my mom and didn't pay attention until after Lydia was already in bed. He hung it up because he felt bad and also because it was a great craft. I do all my best parenting after my kids are asleep, too. When they're asleep, I always think of EVERYTHING I wish I had done better when they were awake. Oh, well. Guess I get to try again tomorrow. — Lydia crafted this bird at preschool. She kept trying to show Abe her bird all evening, but he was on the phone with my mom and didn’t pay attention until after Lydia was already in bed. He hung it up because he felt bad and also because it was a great craft. I do all my best parenting after my kids are asleep, too. When they’re asleep, I always think of EVERYTHING I wish I had done better when they were awake. Oh, well. Guess I get to try again tomorrow.

only the high points

Today I was kind of tired and grumpy from yesterday’s over-activity, but here are the high points of today:

Abe went to Jay’s to watch the Super bowl, so the girls and I had all evening to play. We played chase, played catch, read books, and played climb-the-chair and jump-on-Lydia’s-bed a lot.

Tom and Suzanne came by for a quick visit in the middle of the evening:

Then my mom sent me a biography she’s written of my beloved grandmother. I tried to copy and paste it into this blog, but the formatting was all messed up. When I have time to figure that out, I’ll paste it here.

When Abe came home, he brought me chocolate chip cookies his mom made. I had been craving chocolate chip cookies all day, so it kind of made my day to get them.

ramblings

This morning I fed the girls, practiced, and took them to Institute and the library. At Institute, both girls went to nursery. They did fine until Lydia had a little run-in with a friend, and Lydia burst into tears. At the sight of Lydia in tears, Mary became inconsolable, and I could hear her soundtrack an entire floor down. But I got to attend most of Institute before that, and it was awesome. The curator of the BYU museum of art talked to us about the Carl Bloch exhibit, and I am now dying to go.

Our institute is packed, and so parking is hard. I thought I’d found a great spot today, but when I came out, I discovered a ticket! Did you know you can’t park within 20 inches of a crosswalk? I sure didn’t. I wasn’t blocking the crosswalk, but I guess that wasn’t good enough. I guess I know now.

By the time we came home, the girls had gotten a second wind, so I played with them for another hour before putting them down. Then I did my usual climb-into-bed deal for a nap and some reading. I started Good Lord Bird, and even though it is rather humorous, I already know I’m not going to finish it. Besides, it’s due tomorrow.

When the girls woke up, we ate, cooked, colored, played, read, and I sneaked in more practice (while they ate). Then Abe came home and we had a lightning fast FHE.

Since yesterday was the State of the Union, I decided to do a lesson on our president. I remember when I was a little girl, one of my greatest friends and teachers was my next door neighbor, Ruth. She was in her 90’s, and she was a wonderful listener. She also had a way of gently correcting that never felt like a reprimand but still had great sticking power. On one occasion, I remember going over and saying some negative things about Clinton to her. Ruth responded by telling me that she was from a part of Indiana where the people are called “yellow dog Democrats,” meaning if a yellow dog was on the Democratic ticket, they would vote for it. She said that once she remembered saying something bad about the Republican president, and her mother immediately replied that the presidential office is worthy of our respect and support, no matter who holds it.

I haven’t always acted on the principle Ruth taught me that day, but it’s always in the back of my mind during political conversations. Abe and I read the twelfth Article of Faith to the girls (“We believe in being ^asubject to ^bkings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in ^cobeying, honoring, and sustaining the ^dlaw“) in the hopes that they learn to respect our leaders and honoring all efforts to uphold our democratic system. In order to drive the message home, we played parachute. By now, Abe and I joke that we can relate parachute to any gospel principle; this time it was, “We should uphold our leaders just like we will uphold these objects…in the air over the blanket!”

Then I ran off to Bikram with Anique. Thank goodness she drove, because I felt so sick afterward, I don’t know how I would have made it home. The room was packed, and so maybe the extra bodies drove the temperature up. Whatever it was, I did not feel good afterward and am only now starting to feel somewhat normal.

Here are the pictures from the day:

Ever since Santa brought Lydia her cat back, Puss has played and ever more central role in Lydia's life. She has full-blown conversations with him all day long, and he is her favorite thing to discuss with other people. Mary has picked onto this, and when Lydia is feeling sad, Mary has started bringing her her cat. This was after a sad event with a tower Lydia was building, and Mary was cheering her up. — Ever since Santa brought Lydia her cat back, Puss has played and ever more central role in Lydia’s life. She has full-blown conversations with him all day long, and he is her favorite thing to discuss with other people. Mary has picked up on this, and when Lydia is feeling sad, Mary has started bringing her her cat. This was after a sad event with a tower Lydia was building, and Mary was cheering her up.

I snapped this picture and then joined in. That left corner of the blanket needed some help!

Happy Birthday To Me!

Today was my thirtieth birthday and it feels like kindof a big deal. I feel like I just lost the last part of me that felt sort-of young. I mean, when I was in my twenties, I was lumped in with college undergrads etc., but now I’m lumped in with the thirties, which I’m sure is even a cooler group, but it does feel like a change!

Lily and I each had great days today. I had an awsome training session at work that gave me a lot of insight on how to succeed, and at home Lily was, well, accomplishing crazy amounts of stuff.

Her day started off with a two and a half hour playdate with Paige Anderson and her daughters Ada and ‘Liv. After that Lily somehow managed to practice piano, feed the children, clean the entire house, write me an incredibly touching birthday letter, make me a happy birthday door poster, paint me another happy birthday poster and finally set Lydia up with paints so she (Lydia) could paint me a happy birthday poster. The crazy thing is that when I arrived home, she said she was not tired because she had rested during the day…..um…….when?

But I have to say, all her efforts to make the day feel festive really changed the complexion of the day for me. At work, most people didn’t know it was my birthday, and so not much of a deal was made (I’m still very new), but at home I felt truly celebrated and I thank my sweet wife for that.

As soon as I got home, we had dinner with my mom and Jay at the Spaghetti factory (per my request). I love the Spaghetti factory at Trolly Square because spaghetti speaks to my inner child and yet the atmosphere is classic vintage. It’s hard to explain. I just love how it feels there and the food is great. Dinner conversation was very delightful with topics ranging from Obama raising the minimum wage to 3-D printing to why Payton Manning deserves to win the Super Bowl on moral grounds (because he’s such a dog gone awsome guy). At the very end of dinner, it was time to go, but Lydia wanted to eat more of her Spumoni ice cream. Lily told Lydia that she could take five more bites and then it would be time to go. Lydia quickly took four bites and then, before she could take the fifth, she froze and started gazing into space. We all assumed she had just acquired a massive brain freeze and then after her period of gazing she finally piped up, “I feel cold, does anyone else feel cold?” It is truly hard to recreate how funny it was when she said that, but we all got a great belly laugh.

Now it’s time for bed. I’m eager to get to work tomorrow and start applying what I learned in training. Pictures!!

grace

This morning I woke up and prayed a lot for strength to make it through the day. It seemed like there was a lot to do, and I was tired and a little overwhelmed. But I really felt God answering my prayer. I got most everything done on my to-do list, and I enjoyed doing it. It feels unusual, so I feel pretty confident there was divine intervention along the way.

The morning was filled with feeding children, cleaning, homework and practicing. At one point Mary was crying because she wanted my attention, so I picked her up and talked to her. I asked her if she wanted to read (vigorous head shake no), if she wanted to play with her bugaboos (slightly less vigorous head shake no) and if she wanted to play with her blocks (a little sound that sort of kind of sounded like “yes”). Hopeful that she wanted to play with blocks, I put her down.

Sure enough, off she toddled to her blocks and proceeded to play with them until Lydia announced that she loved Mary and wanted to play with her. This announcement was greeted with a squeal–nay, scream–of excitement, and the two of them spent the next half an hour playing happily together. I wanted nothing more than to watch, but I knew that would ruin the dynamic…and I had homework to do, so I just listened delightedly. When I was done with my homework, I sneaked into their room and caught a picture of them in play.

Then I folded laundry until our play date. I had scheduled a visiting teaching play date with my companion and visiting teachee, but I never informed our poor visiting teachee that the play date was at my house. I wanted to spare her the descent of five small children and two adults upon her home, but since I never relayed that intention, our play date included everyone but our visiting teachee and her daughter. Oops.

But here are the pictures from the play date:

Doesn’t Mary look a lot like those twins? They are a week younger than Mary, and the three of them look like they belong together.

Then I rushed off to cooking school. While I was learning about soups and eggs, Abe took the girls to a Thai restaurant in Lehi where they met up with Karin, Jay, and Jay’s kids to celebrate Jay’s birthday. Abe tells me the girls were perfectly behaved. I felt bad because I forgot they were going to do that, and I didn’t bother to put shoes on Mary when I loaded her into the car to go to school (where Abe and I meet and pass off the girls). She walked around the restaurant in her socks.

Oh, and at cooking school, my group decided to do our presentation on fried foods. I have never truly fried anything in my life (unless you count when the oil is barely a quarter inch deep), and I’m covering tempura. I just nodded and smiled like there’s nothing more in the world that I’d love more than to research and do tempura, but inside I was dying a little bit. But I do love to eat tempura, so maybe this won’t be so terrible…

hat day, mother sauces, stock and chocolates

Oooh boy, these late night classes are late. I just got home and it is a quarter to midnight. Yikes! But I do love learning. Today we learned about the school’s competition team, which meets Saturday morning. I would love to join, but right now I feel so tired it’s hard to imagine trying to fit that in. I guess we’ll just have to see.

It feels like forever ago, but this morning I took the girls to the library for story time. The theme was “hats,” and at the end the librarians brought out a ton of hats for the kids to wear. They set up a little footstool next to a cardboard Woody so the kids could all have their pictures taken with Woody. Here are the girls:

Afterward, I let the girls play in one of the little play caves. There were a ton of kids there, and Mary really wanted to climb a popular set of stairs. She stood there staring longingly at them for a while until Lydia cleared a path for her. My shy little Lydia came over and in a loud, confident voice said to the kids, “Get out of the way! Get out of the way! Come on, Mary. Good job, Mary!!” She led Mary up and down the stairs, and the other children kindly cleared out of the way.

Then we came home and ate, read, and played. Mary took a short nap, and I didn’t want to believe her nap was over when she started crying, so I took her into bed with me. It worked, and she slept ten more minutes. I’ll take it. Plus, I got to cuddle my baby, so it was really a win-win.

My favorite quote from class today was, “Nutmeg is the thug of the spice world.” (We were making the mother sauces, and this was in reference to our treatment of the bechamel.) I actually didn’t practice any of the mother sauces because I ended up doing the class’s stock, and that took almost the whole time. Between the twenty chicken carcasses and attempting to deglaze giant sheet pans (while the fumes from the alcohol burst into flames all around the pans), I was a little busy. I am a wimp about fire, and I learned that I will have to get over that. The worst part was when a giant pan got stuck in one of the ovens; to get it out, you have to pull with ALL of your strength while your hands are in the hot oven. It feels…dangerous.

So anyway, I’ll see about Saturday. The team meets from 8am to noon, and that’s right when I try to make it to yoga. So either I could wake up earlier and go to the 6am yoga before the team meets, or I could just try running before hand and do yoga on a weeknight. Right now I just know I need to do something, because my class meets at the same time as the chocolates class, and they send plates upon plates of chocolates over to our kitchen. It’s alarming and delicious, all at the same time.

Happy

This morning, we went to preschool. Paige ran out for a minute to make copies, and in the meantime I experienced a bit of heaven. It looked like this:

These girls are collaborating on a puzzle. They're saying things like, "Sophia, do you think this goes here?" "Here, Lydia, I think it goes here." — These girls are collaborating on a puzzle. They’re saying things like, “Sophia, do you think this goes here?” “Here, Lydia, I think it goes here.”

I sat on the couch and felt happy.

Then Paige came back and read to the girls. They all loved that:

Ada tried on Lydia's coat and Audrey's boots. They suited her. — Ada tried on Lydia’s coat and Audrey’s boots. They suited her.

After preschool, we raced to the church because, guess what? Institute now has a nursery! I’ve never been to our stake institute class, and I was shocked to find the two parking lots so full that I struggled to find a spot. I was a little late, but today’s topic was Joseph Smith in the Kirtland years (from what I gathered). There was a lot of talk about how the writings of Paul are echoed in the articles of faith and in the Book of Mormon.

Then home for lunch, play, naps, homework, piano and reading (I am in the middle of The Fellowship of the Ring, and it was with the greatest reluctance that I set that aside to blog tonight).

Somewhere in there, I made another souffle (I am addicted), cleaned the kitchen, fed the girls dinner, and ran some soup over to Anique. We have a little exchange going on, and it was my turn. I am boring and always send over lentil soup, and she sends me all kinds. Maybe next week I’ll branch out…

Here are some pictures Abe took right before we put the girls to bed.

:Lydia got tickled. (And at one point, she jerked up and bonked my teeth. I feel so bad because I think she's going to bruise.) — :Lydia got tickled. (And at one point, she jerked up and bonked my teeth. I feel so bad because I think she’s going to bruise.)

Roomie reunion

This morning I practiced my knife skills by cutting a bunch of vegetables for lentil soup. The veggies came out noticeably uneven. Also, upon later consumption, I realized that the soup was unsalted and the veggies were practically raw. Yuck! Then I prepped a sweet potato souffle and rushed to play group with the kids. I forgot to bring Lydia’s bike, but that was okay since we didn’t stay long. My old roommates were in town, and as soon as they called, I rushed out of play group to meet them at home.

At one point I calculated that during my single years I had sixty-eight roommates. Granted, I counted my mission roommates, who would change up every six weeks. I also counted people I lived with for as short as a couple weeks. But I think it’s safe to say that those ten years had a variety of living situations, and during that time, my period with the roommates I saw today stands out in memory as one of the happiest living arrangements of my life. I loved my life with them, and it was truly uplifting to see these lovely, fun, funny, kind, intelligent, affirming women today. Vanessa is expecting baby Tessa in March, and Shandi has two kids, one a month older than Lydia and one GORGEOUS baby who is a couple months old.

Our kids got along great, and I loved, loved, loved visiting with Shandi and Vanessa. Shandi and I even got to play and sing together (she did the singing), and that was SO fun. She has a beeee-autiful voice, and I’d been looking forward to hearing it again for a while. Suffice it to say, I was sad when they left–but so glad that they came!

The rest of the day had some reading, some piano, some tantrums, lots of cleaning, and hopefully now some homework. Here are today’s pictures:

Since Mary is now on a one nap a day schedule, I can go to play group again! — Since Mary is now on a one nap a day schedule, we can go to play group again!

Vanessa, siting on the floor, is due in March. She can do stuff like sit on the floor and wear heels while pregnant. I'm jealous. — Shandi’s kids are Sebastian and Penelope. Vanessa remarked that Shandi could open a children’s boutique named “Sebastian and Penelope.” Can’t you picture it?

Abe watched the girls while I practiced tonight. From the sounds of it, they had some rough moments. But he did capture some good ones here:

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