Month: June 2017

On Friday morning the cleaning crew came, so I got the kids out of their hair and took them to the library for a quick stockpile before the babysitter arrived.

Then we came home and did piano and harp practice. Right when I was about to call Lydia for harp practice, I slipped on the rug because the floors were wet. My legs flew open and I about screamed t from pain. The only thing that stopped me was the poor cleaning lady was looking on in horror, and she felt like it was her fault. I tried to explain to her how it was entirely MY fault for being so stupid and jumping from rug to rug (I was trying to avoid walking on the wet floor), but we had a little language barrier and I think she left feeling bad. I wish, wish, wish I spoke Spanish. After panting on the couch through Lydia’s practice, I retired to bed for hours hoping the pain would ease.

Finally I called the doctor, and they instructed me to go into labor and delivery to make sure my water had not broken. My mom drove me there and, hooray, my water was intact! But after that slip, I really and truly can no longer drive or walk more than a couple minutes at a time. Thank goodness for the babysitters.

This is such an egocentric, self-indulgent blog post. Friday also marked the end of the quarter, and Abe’s deal postponed until the next week, meaning his team not only missed, but missed by a looooooong shot. It was a very stressful day for him too. We went to bed that night exchanging comments of consolation for each other, but truth be told, we were both pretty absorbed in our own troubles. Abe had work eating away at his mind, and I was terrified I would never regain full mobility. Good thing Saturday came and proved to be a wonderful turnaround for both of us.

Abe hired a slew of young women from the ward to help out while I attempt bed rest. I think the rest is helping, although the only difference the babysitter made in the morning was that I didn’t have to jump up and down chasing Ammon during the girls’ music practice.

By the time we were done with practice, it was time for lunch. I grilled sandwiches for everyone before retreating to bed for the rest of the day. The afternoon was noticeably more restful than normal. I am so grateful to Abe for being so compassionate in the middle of his own stress and scheduling out these sitters.

Abe came home feeling tired but more confident that his deal will go through by Friday. Most of his deal won’t bill until January, but what will bill (if it bills) will really help get him closer to his quota. Hitting his quota might happen if some last minute deals go through for one of his team members. For Abe’s sake, I keep praying it all works out. He works so hard on all fronts, and I just want him to feel successful and happy.

When Abe came home, I wasn’t feeling like I should eat anything since I have barely moved at all today and probably eaten more than I needed to throughout the day. But Abe came to the bed bearing a beautiful platter of grilled veggie and chicken burgers with toppings. He is so sweet, and so I joined everyone for dinner and enjoyed it thoroughly.

When Abe tried to nap on the grass afterward, the kids decided he was a horse. This happened:

Today I learned that I should have been actually paying attention to my doctor’s advice. Instead of listening to him, we’ve been trying to forge ahead with business-as-much-usual-as-possible.

This morning, for example, I got up early to get the kids all ready for their 8am swimming lessons, and then we came home and got ready for the day. That included doing the girls’ hair (a loud, emotional ordeal every time), wrestling kids into clothes, brushing teeth, and helping them clean their room before breakfast. Because the kids refused to go to bed last night, they were tired. When they are tired, they scream, cry, and protest everything. Every action item listed above was accompanied by a tantrum–sometimes several in tandem!

After breakfast, we headed over to Target. From the moment I stepped out of the car into the Target parking lot, my pelvis or groin or whatever it is that is causing me problems protested,  I ignored it and pushed all three kids (the girls, as I mentioned before, were tired and did not care to walk) in the cart around our enormous super Target to get: two fans for the girls’ room (they don’t have AC in their room), baking chocolate (I had grand plans to bake brownies for the construction workers down the street; I felt very antagonistic toward them for a week and then realized they have the hard job. The brownies were supposed to be part of my repentance…), toilet paper, body wash, diapers, a birthday present fo a party the girls had (in less than an hour), a bag for the present, tissue paper for the bag, and card to go with it all,

By the time I reached the check-out, I was almost in tears from pain. The check-out kid was incredibly kind and asked concernedly about the state of my day. I choked out something and tried to stand upright while he rang me up. By the time I slid in my card, I had broken into a drenching sweat, was gagging back vomit, and using every ounce of energy to not pass out. He kindly allowed me to sit down on the abandoned bagging station nearby and got me a garbage to puke in. Thankfully, I just gagged a lot and held back the actual puke. There were a lot of people present, and I was sooooo thankful they did not have to witness/smell that.

Then I lost my mind and called Abe, who is super busy, to come rescue me. He immediately jumped in his car, but as my brain became clearer I realized my mom is closer and also does not have to hit quota by Friday. I cancelled Abe and asked my mom to pick me up. Then I started feeling slightly better and managed to walk back to the car just as my mom pulled up. She relieved me of some groceries before I drove the girls to Pippa’s birthday party in Provo.

Ammon fell asleep on the way home, so he didn’t nap. That was sad. After his non-nap, we went to pick up the girls and bring them to Mary’s podiatrist to check her wart. It is healed! Lydia enjoyed the model foot pictured below:

After we came home, I lay down on the play room couch for hours until Abe came home. Ammon was locked in with me and played with every toy in the toy room. By the time we were done, you could not see the floor.

And now Abe is home, Ammon is asleep, we have planted the girls in front of a movie, and we are going to watch a movie. I am going to cancel everything tomorrow and try to follow the doctor’s orders so I don’t actually end up in a wheelchair. I used to find the thought kind of a joke, but I can feel now that it’s actually not a joke at all.

 

Today I found out I don’t have diabetes! I am so relieved. This is the third time I have failed the first test and passed the second. I think I am beginning to see a pattern here…

Also, Ammon is teething. He woke up inconsolable from his nap today. I got a picture of him cuddling with my mom to calm down.

Shortly after this we headed out to bring Lydia to a break dancing class. To date Lydia has loved every extra curricular I have ever enrolled her in, but she was not a huge fan of break dancing. Or rather, she did not care for the teacher. Good thing I have a punch pass to that studio–from now on, I am going to use our punches for ballet.

Then we came home, cooked and ate outside. The kids scootered and biked around the table before dinner.

Now I am going to read my book club book while Abe works for another six hours beside me. He is working like crazy to do everything he can to make his quota by Friday.

I snapped a picture of Ammon during his swim lesson this morning.

After that I forgot to take any pictures for the rest of the day. We spent the entire morning at home practicing the harp and piano, after which it was almost 1pm and Ammon’s nap. I read to the girls until it was time to go to my dermatologist to find out what is going on with my belly. Apparently I have some weird auto-immune system thing that manifests as rings of eczema. Gross.

And then I broke myself grocery shopping so I hobbled home, put away as many groceries as I could (not many) and spent the rest of the evening recovering. Since I can’t move, I decided to make chat books of our recent trips. Since my photos are completely disorganized, it is taking a loooong time. Next time I am going to be more organized and have hashtags or some sorting mechanism ready to go so that the process is easier.

This Sunday I came home from church and wrote our holiday letter. In all the years we’ve been married, Abe and I have never sent out a holiday letter. The first year we sent out individual, hand-written cards. Actually, before we started dating, we got to know each other by getting together and writing out holiday cards. So we started out strong! …And then experienced a six year fizzle.

So anyhoo, now our letter is all typed and ready to go, six months early. There is definitely an aspirational quality to its content since half of the year hasn’t actually happened yet. I plan on deleting all of the fiction once I know how the year actually played out.

Abe fasted today and is stressed out of his mind. This next week is the last week of the quarter for him, which means he has to hit quota by Friday. The big deal that he has been chasing all quarter got snagged in legal last week, meaning if there’s no quick resolution (which it’s looking like there won’t be–in fact, it might even die in legal), then he will miss his quota by a long shot. Abe is basically in a state of panic. I wish there were more I could do, but I do pray for him.

Mary fell asleep after church today. Someone, either my mom or Abe, slipped a towel under her so she wouldn’t pee all over her bed while napping. I was amused and took a photo.

Also, Abe rallied from his sorrows and conducted science experiments with the girls this evening. They used ground red cabbage dye to figure out what household liquids were acids and which were bases. The girls were entranced. Mary was convinced he was performing magic tricks.

Also–how could I forget?? Lydia spent most of the afternoon PLAYING WITH OUR NEIGHBOR’S DOG!!!!! If you know Lyida, you know she is scared out of her mind of dogs. She has been bitten (nipped, whatever) twice, and when she sees a dog–any dog–she literally goes screaming in the other direction. We have talked about therapy because we are so afraid she will actually run into a busy street someday without thinking. Her capacity to reason seems to shut off at the sight of a dog and she enters the most atavistic arena of cognition. Which is to say, basically cognition doesn’t happen.

Anyway, we were all shocked when Eli convinced Lydia to not only pet his dog, but to spend hours playing with it. We praised her up and down repeatedly for the rest of the evening when we found out. And we sincerely hope this is the start of a new phase for Lydia–one in which she can still be herself around dogs!!

Last night Abe had a team activity with his Qualtrics team. They had a campfire up in the mountains, and some members camped the night there. The ones with families, like Abe, only stayed until around midnight or so. He had the greatest time and said it was the best team activity he had ever had. He loves his team and felt so bonded after that experience.

This morning we got up early to say good-bye to Clark and Soren. We had a wonderful week with them, and we are already looking forward to the next time we get together.

I had a bad dream that the carrot cake we got yesterday spoiled without my ever tasting it, so I had some for breakfast while we visited with Clark before they left.

I spent most of the day recovering in bed. I read an absolutely wonderful novel, Gilead. It was very inspiring and, frankly, elevating.

Our friends Jan and Chelsea came by to visit in the afternoon. Jan brought us dinner and Chelsea brought us a lot of her twins’ hand-me-downs for Ammon. It was lovely to see them.

Abe caught the girls having a tea party after our afternoon nap.

After dinner, Abe and I rested until 9pm. When the kids came in from playing, we discovered that they had spent the evening going door-to-door with Eli trying to sell fortunes to the neighbors. Lydia cowered on the sidewalk in case any of the neighbors had dogs, and Mary did the talking. Mary denies this, but since Lydia has never lied to me and Mary lies to me regularly, I believe Lydia. I wish we could have been flies and watched them at work.

On Friday morning I had my three hour diabetes test. This is the third time I’ve taken it, so I am used to the drill by now. I have passed the other two times, so I hope I pass this time too!

I took Lydia with me to the test. We had wonderful one-on-one time that felt extremely special and restful. I read a detective book to her, scratched her back, and looked at pictures from my tea garden book with her. We discussed the difference between English tea gardens, Japanese tea gardens, herb gardens, and my very favorite, cottage gardens. Some day I aspire to tending a cottage garden. I have never enjoyed the three hour test so much. Really it was more like four hours because the internet was down when we arrived, so we got an extra hour of waiting in before they could even start the test.

Then we had a lunch date. I let Lydia choose the restaurant, and she chose Noodles and Co. We took a little long so she ended up being slightly late for robotics camp.

After I dropped her off, I came home and picked up Sophie to drop her off at home before coming home again. Just when I was about to read to Mary, she peed on her pouf and had to be bathed. By the time she was bathed, it was time to get Lydia and Eli. Mary wanted to come too, so I brought her along.

Then we dropped Eli off at home before heading to the store and on some errands. When we got home, it was almost time to take the kids to the boys’ haircuts.

Then we had a mussels, watermelon, corn and sourdough bread for dinner. There was also carrot cake, but I haven’t tried any yet because Ammon was so messy that I took him up early to clean him off. Abe has a team activity in the mountains tonight and won’t be home until late.

After I got the kids in their pj’s, we had harp and piano practice, scriptures, prayer and then bed. I was really proud to get all of the kids in bed by 8:15pm!! That meant I had time leftover to sit on the couch and catch up on blogging. Yay!

 

On Thursday morning we got everyone ready for the day. Abby took these pictures while babysitting:

We then dropped the girls off at summer camp before heading over to Qualtrics for two hours. Abby and I let the boys play there while I sat on the couch. Abby joined me and we enjoyed not having to do much while the boys had a blast.

Then we picked up the girls, dropped Abby and Soren off at the house, and took Lydia to robotics camp.

After that I came home, dropped Abby off at her house, and then came back to read to Mary and take a quick (five minute?) rest before picking up Eli and Lydia from camp.

Then I made corn-stuffed peppers and pasta with pesto for dinner. We sat outside for a long time before coming in for clean-up and the bedtime routine.

On Wednesday morning we got up early for swimming lessons. The kids have two sets of lessons for the next three weeks before tapering off to our usual teacher, a sweet high school kid who teaches them in her pool on Tuesday afternoons. The other teacher, pictured below, is an actual professional, and I am crossing my fingers she can get the kids actually swimming. They have had soooooooo many sets of swimming lessons, and none of them can swim. But after three sessions with Mindee (the pro), Ammon is actually practicing his new flipping and floating skills in the bath! I am wowed. I hope the girls progress too…

Then we headed home and got everyone dressed, breakfasted, practiced, and ready for the day. After we were all done with our morning routines, we headed to the library to pick up our stuffed animals and check out the slideshow to see what adventures they had had the night before. Lydia dressed in her dino costume to commemorate the occasion.

Growly, Mary’s tiger, rode a zebra! Flops, Lydia’s dog, made phone calls and dressed up. Minnie, Soren’s choice, had so many adventures I can’t recall them all, and the giraffe, Ammon’s choice, had the most fun of all! I think the photographers thought he was photogenic, so he dressed up in a ton of photos and had a gazillion pictures in the slideshow.

Then we dropped off Soren and Sophie at home before taking Lydia to robotics camp. Ammon fell asleep en route for the second day in a row, meaning that this was the second day in a row he did not nap. That put me in rather a bad mood for the rest of the day.

After I picked up Lydia from robotics camp, we headed to Lydia’s harp lesson with Mary in tow. Mary played puzzles while Lydia had her lesson. Afterward we went to the store to pick up what we needed for dinner that night.

Then I came home and cooked Boston baked cod and corn on the cob for dinner while Abe took Mary to her piano lesson.

Then we ate dinner outside in the roasting heat, after which I came inside an collapsed in bed where I stayed for the rest of the night. It was a full day.