Yesterday I either had the flu or some sort of food poisoning. I also had to take the glucose test in the morning, and on top of the constant sharp pain whenever I walk, all of those things combined to put me down for the entire day. My mom basically did everything, and Abe did stuff too when he came home.
Doing nothing in bed while others work for you is not a great way to build self-esteem. Even though I knew I literally could not do more, I felt so bad. So today, when I woke up with whatever the bug/flu/poisoning I had yesterday gone, I tried to make up for yesterday’s insane amount of inactivity.
First I helped clean the kitchen. Abe made an amazing breakfast for the kids, and I puttered around cleaning up.
Then I “helped” Lydia with her harp practice. Basically, I was no help at all and instead just made her cry. I retreated to the bathroom with a copy of Suzuki notes and resolved to up my positive language game next time.
Then I did four loads of laundry and changed our bedsheets. (The laundry was an all-day, ongoing project.)
Then I cleaned Ammon’s room.
Then I sorted out all of the girls’ winter clothes into storage so that they don’t have to dig through those piles of useless things when trying to find their summer clothes.
While sorting clothes, I directed and re-directed the girls to their cleaning chores. They were supposed to clean ALL of their messes and make their beds before playing outside today. It took…hours.
Then I ate lunch.
Then I cleaned a bathroom.
Then I collapsed crying from pain in bed, and Abe gave me a long massage and a pep talk.
Then Abe and my mom took the kids to the Orem Summerfest carnival, and I stayed home and caught up on the blog for HOURS.
Here’s a picture he sent me from the carnival:
I anticipate more pictures coming soon, but my eyes are burning from blogging so much, so I am just going to shut my computer, read my book, The Big Rock Candy Mountain, and add those later.
(Later):
Lydia is obviously trying to keep Ammon safe here. She is a very conscientious child.
I am dying to be caught up on the blog so I can blog daily instead of retrospectively. During our trip, we did not have much internet access and we were short on blogging time. When we came home, I realized the blog was basically broken. Jere, Abe’s amazing computer-genius brother, spent a lot of time helping me to fix all of the issues with the blog. Now I can blog again–yay!!–but I am also soooooo behind.
So I am just going to talk about the past two weeks thematically instead of trying to record every day.
First theme: Summer camps! I registered the girls for summer camp back in April, and so we have been looking forward to these for some time. The first camp they go to is in the morning at the playground by the Orem Rec Center. It is insanely low-key. Basically, the kids play on the playground and have different crafting themes each day (and the crafting usually means coloring something). But they love it, and I love that they start each day with some good time outdoors with other kids.
During their camp, I spend one-on-one time with Ammon. I have a pulled groin muscle right now that the doctor has told me will only heal if I don’t walk. Can you imagine that? I can’t imagine being a mom and not walking. But I do my best, and most of the time we head home and read books. But sometimes I ignore the doctor’s advice and haul Ammon around to the park, the store, the library, or wherever I think he will have some fun.
I pick the girls up at noon, and then we head over to UVU where Lydia has robotics camp. I usually feed the kids sandwiches and fruit in the car before dropping Lydia off to go build robots. I was worried there would be a distinct gender gap in the robotics camp participants, but to my delight there are a number of other little girls in the camp.
Then I head home and put Ammon down for his nap. Sometimes I read to Mary or do something productive, and sometimes I nap. Most of the time I nap.
At 2:30, I pick up Lydia. Usually we get our harp practice done before camp starts, so that means she has the rest of the day to play outside with the neighbor kids. I just registered her for summer reading, though, so maybe we will start doing that before she plays (or bring her in before 9:30 at night, which is when all of the kids seem to wind down). But typically she and Mary run around with three other families of neighbor kids for the rest of the day. We call the girls back for dinner, but then immediately re-release them afterward. They never tire of playing outside with the neighbors, and the happy sounds of their play make us all rejoice in the freedom and joys of their childhood.
Second theme: Doctor’s visits. I don’t know why this is a theme, but it seems like we go to some sort of doctor on a practically daily basis. Since our arrival home from the trip we have seen the podiatrist for Mary’s foot wart, the pediatrician for Mary’s kindergarten shots, the OBYGYN for my check-up, the OBYGYN lab for my glucose test, the dentist for a family cleaning…and my doctor told me to schedule an appointment with the dermatologist soon about some crazy skin conditions that I am getting. I have pictures from an assortment of these visits below.
The dentist.Waiting at the pediatrician.Waiting at the podiatrist.The nurse at the podiatrist’s tells Mary about her wart.
Third theme: Scera Pool. I have no idea why we have lived here three years and this is my first time discovering the Scera Pool. It is less than five minutes from our house and a perfect place to take the kids. I have almost used up my 25 visit punch pass which I bought about a week ago. (Granted, each person counts as a punch, and one day I was babysitting the neighbors and took them too). At any rate, the pool has been a revelation. I step-count the way others calorie count, meaning, I am trying to limit my steps. If I weren’t limiting my steps, I would take the kids to the pool every day. I love it there.
Fourth theme: Gardening. Again, I am crippled, so this is not a personal theme, but it is a familial one! Last Saturday Abe spent ten hours planting, and my mom and the kids were right there alongside of him. The girls were so cute using watering cans as big as they were. I will have to ask my mom for those pictures. These are the ones I have:
….And now I am going to consider myself officially caught up. From here on out, I can blog about the present!!! Woo-hooo!!!!
