On Saturday my mom drove the girls up to Salt Lake to meet up with Suzanne for high tea. My mom initially thought of high tea as a reward to motivate the girls to have better table manners. As of Saturday morning, they were still eating the same way they always have, but my mom drove them up anyway. They all had a great time, and the girls managed to not break anything. They celebrated Mary’s birthday month during high tea, and Mary was soooo happy about that.
With the girls away, Abe and I felt like we were on vacation. I remember reading A Joyful Mother of Children by Linda Eyre when I was pregnant with Mary and Lydia was one year old. Linda Eyre writes that sometimes her husband would send her on a weekend vacation to a hotel somewhere with the baby. She had seven kids, so a weekend with just the baby was supposedly a vacation.
Reading this as a mother of one, I thought that a weekend “vacation” with a baby did not qualify as a vacation at all. One is a ton of work!! BUT…now I think I understand. Abe and I just had Clarissa and Ammon at home, and even though Ammon is a handful and Clarissa’s nursing schedule sometimes drives me a little nuts, it still felt like a vacation for us to just have two kids to deal with. We took it really easy and ended up going to Dairy Queen. It is so nice just to talk, be together, and do nothing productive sometimes.
Doing nothing productive was an absolute necessity for Abe, who is losing his mind trying to balance all of his responsibilities and desperately needs a break. He is wearing so many hats at work, we have a new baby, Abe often goes to Ammon during the night when Ammon is (still!!!!) teething, and Abe always has a lot more he could be doing for the Elder’s Quorum. He also tries to go to the temple and has been running more. Abe keeps asking me if I’m sure we’re supposed to have (or adopt) another baby, and I am starting to wonder. He is feeling really content with four.
On Saturday morning Abe ran about four miles with Ammon. They ran to the duck pond and fed the ducks. They made a fun memory together. The tire on the buddy bubble went flat, though, so Clarissa and I picked them up and drove them home. We enjoyed rescuing Abe and Ammon.
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In the evening our fairy godfather (aka the Dallas manager) sent us the ten-person chicken pesto meal. It was ENORMOUS. We sent some over to a friend who also just had a baby, and we still have an entire pan leftover. It has been sooooo nice not to cook for so many nights. We are extremely grateful to this person that only Abe has ever met.