On Saturday Abe, his dad, and Ammon returned from their campout. Abe said everyone had a great time, except that next time he will have to find a different site. Apparently the campground they were in is open pasture for cows, and there were enormous cow pies everywhere.
It was hard for him to find a spot to pitch his tent. In the morning, all of the little boys went around hunting for the goopiest, freshest cow pies and played with them. Gross!
But Abe was just happy to have pulled the activity off at all, seeing as he only announced it to the quorum five days ago. I think he’s planning on announcing next year’s campout this week so that everyone has more notice next time. 🙂
Here are their pictures:
In the meantime, we were at home battling over the harp and everything else with Lydia. I have let her stay up late too often these past couple days because she has been absorbed in her crafts and hasn’t wanted to go to bed. She has been getting progressively more tired, and when Lydia is tired, she kind of sort of drives me absolutely crazy.
I had a great piano practice with Mary, though! She is uninterested in doing crafts herself, and therefore has been extremely well-rested.
Finally, after Abe came home and napped, Lydia agreed to do harp with her dad. He then fulfilled her summer-long daydream and helped her set up a lemonade stand.
Then Abe went to pick up groceries. Thank goodness for online ordering! It has saved our lives these past few weeks.
While he was gone, I let the girls play with the neighbors even though they have lost their privileges. Their privileges have been lost since Tuesday, but since some of our neighbors arrived home from a trip today, I made an exception.
I regretted the decision soon after because Eli ran Mary over with his bike while she was dancing in the driveway, and then Lydia refused to come inside. I am not physically able to pick her up and drag her inside, so I was reduced to shouting from my window to both girls to come inside. Eventually, Mary managed to pull herself up off of the grass and come in, and Lydia followed a little after.
I lead them to their room only to discover that during nap time they had made the BIGGEST MESS OF THEIR LIVES. Now, one of the reasons they have lost their privileges is because they keep refusing to clean their messes, and my poor mom is killing herself cleaning up after them. When I saw their room, I completely lost it. The whole floor was covered, I could barely open the door, and there were toys and books EVERYWHERE.
I don’t mind that they make messes! That’s what kids do, but I DO mind when they make messes and expect us all (meaning, lately, my mom) to pick up after them. After I ordered them to pick it all up, I retreated to my room so I wouldn’t completely lose control. (They would probably say that I already lost control, but compared to all the things I wanted to say and do, what I actually did was pretty minimal.)
I stayed enraged for the rest of the night, and even when Abe gave me a massage (he is so amazing), I couldn’t seem to calm down. Maybe it’s pregnancy hormones? At any rate, I think the girls learned their lesson. It took them a loooooong time to clean everything up, and Mary was sobbing the whole time that she was tired and wanted to go to bed. They finally finished around 10pm, at which point they both fell asleep promptly.
You would hope that was the end of the long story, but no. At midnight, just when Abe and I had fallen asleep, Lydia came screaming deliriously into our room, removed her underwear, and peed and enormous amount of pee right next to our bed onto the carpet. In the four years since she potty trained, I can count on one hand the number of accidents she has had. This was so bizarre, and Abe and I were so confused about what was going on. I don’t think she was awake enough to know what she was doing, but it was quite the ending to quite the day with that child!