Month: September 2017

Sunday is not over yet, but I am blogging now because everyone but Clarissa and I are at church, and in the evenings I don’t have access to my computer because Lydia and Mary listen to audiobooks from it. If I don’t blog now, I fear I will get behind yet again and have to do yet another full week back-log next weekend.

Not much has happened today, except that Clarissa had an epic poop. This blow-out was like nothing Abe had ever seen. The poop went from her ankles to her shoulders, and her diaper looked like Hurricane Harvey had hit it. Sadly, she was wearing a paper diaper, and so the poop got everywhere. Cloth diapers prevent these types of blow outs, but I think Abe has learned a lot from this experience. I personally have switched to only cloth diapers because I hate having to deal with blow-outs. I think Abe is going to start doing that too after this.

Newborns are supposed to poop five to seven times a day. Clarissa poops once a day, but she packs it all into that one event. Usually her poop is preceded by hours of grunting, and after her poop she is so exhausted she sleeps for hours. Sometimes the event is so explosive that it scares her, she screams, and then she falls asleep. Today she just fell asleep and it smeared all over her Mamaroo while Abe was in the shower.

I slept through it all because I was up with Clarissa all night. She started grunting at 12:30, and she did not go back to sleep until after 4am. Abe and my mom worked so hard this morning as I caught up on sleep before church. I am so grateful!

On Saturday afternoon Lydia had a harp rehearsal, Mary had a birthday party, and Lucas and Kim had a gender-reveal party. Abe and I got seriously stressed out trying to coordinate everything. We dropped off Mary almost an hour late because we got lost in Vineyard, a new suburb that is soooo confusing (it has TWO Center Streets!!).

At the gender-reveal party, we had to leave before they finished batting down the piñata because we were already late picking Mary up. That was embarrassing and stressful, but I loved seeing all of our Qualtrics friends.

And we were so stressed out by it all that we didn’t take a single picture. But at least our house is not flooded. With all of the hurricanes battering the Caribbean, Texas and Florida, we should be counting our blessings instead of feeling stressed by little things that don’t matter. It’s hard to comprehend that as I sit in my sunny spot by the window, typing and gazing at Mt. Timpanogos, there are people losing everything down south. I wish I could do more than pray for them, but it’s all I can do right now.

God, please bless the people suffering through these storms. Look after their individual needs and respond to their cries for help. Please comfort them, restore their homes and cities quickly, and spare their lives and the lives of their loved ones. Jesus, who calmed the storm, please calm this storm. In Jesus’ name, amen.

 

 

On Friday I had a great day, even considering the measly four hours of sleep Clarissa gave me the night before. I did a million loads of laundry and put it ALL away, did Mary’s piano with her, tidied the house, fed Clarissa around the clock, and continued training Ammon on how to eat at the table with everyone else. (Until Thursday he ate from his high chair.)

My mom sorted our emergency prep stuff in the garage. With all of the storms and earthquakes going on, she has kicked up preparations into high gear. She also was so helpful with the kids yesterday. When I got home with all of the kids after picking up Mary and Lydia, Mary had wet her carseat, the baby was crying, and Ammon was covered in ice cream (we stopped at Dairy Queen en route). My mom took care of Mary so I could wipe down Ammon and feed the baby. Without my mom, I would probably have to let Clarissa scream while I wiped down Ammon and showered off Mary. I am so grateful for my mom!

Abe continued to be sick, but he managed to still have a productive day at work. He actually had chest pains from all of the stress at work on top of his illness. I am starting to get concerned he is going to have a heart attack before the age of forty.

 

 

 

On Thursday I accompanied Lydia to her harp lesson for the first time since June. I am so grateful we have the kids down for bed at a reasonable time these days because her 6:30am harp lesson would be really difficult otherwise.

We had a pretty normal day after that. Lydia went to school, Mary did piano, Ammon made chaos everywhere, and Abe continued to be really sick. We hope he gets better soon.

Here are some pictures from Clarissa’s photo shoot:

On Wednesday Abe stayed after work to golf with Lucas. With the new changes at Qualtrics, Lucas is now going to be in charge of ten teams, and Abe’s chance to get one-on-one time with him at work is going to shrink a lot. So even though Abe was practically dying of his illness, he stayed late to play with Lucas. They had a great time, and I think the sunshine and being away from all of the home chaos (er, Ammon) was good for Abe.

I was so proud of myself at home! I got the kids ged, bathed, and in bed by 7pm. My mom was really helpful on the cleaning front, so by 7pm we were done for the day! I love it when the day ends early, especially since it basically starts at 3am (for Clarissa and me, at least).

Here are some photos from Clarissa’s photo shoot:

On Tuesday while Lydia was climbing, my mom, the kids and I went to Kid to Kid and got emergency-prep outfits for the kids. Turns out the boots were full of carcinogens from China, so those got returned. But otherwise the kids are prepared for the big earthquake.

Abe was really, really sick on Tuesday. He barely slept at all on Monday night, and on Tuesday he could barely function. I know this sickness is because he works sooo hard at work AND at home for our family. He has simply over-exerted, and I feel so sorry for him.

 

Monday was Labor Day, and Abe got to stay home for the day. He went on a seven mile run in the morning with the kids. He stopped in the middle of his run to feed the ducks with the kids, and to have a picnic. Clarissa, Mary and I drove to meet Ammon, Lydia and him at the pond. (Lydia and Mary had to take turns riding in the buddy bubble on the run because it only fits two.)

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Unfortunately, all of the exertion left Abe so depleted that he got really sick and stayed pretty sick for the rest of the week. It was a sunshiny, happy start to the week, though!

We don’t have any pictures from today, so I am just going to update on some of the things the kids have been doing lately.

Ammon is talking more! I’m pretty sure we are the only people who could begin to decipher what he is saying, but at least we can tell. Right now his favorite books are:

• Llama Llama and the Bully Goat during which he gets really excited about the “zeebee!” which is his word for “zebra.” He also loves correcting the bully goat and giving him his time out. He also says “llama” the way you would pronounce the double “l” in Spanish. “Yama yama!”.
• The Twelve Days of Christmas, which is hard enough for me to sing at Christmas, much less multiple times a day during August. I do it because I adore Ammon.
• Jolly Old Santa Claus, which Ammon loves. He says, “hoo hoo hoo” for Santa Claus and has me sing all sorts of carols to match the pictures on each page.
• Madeline Loves Animals, a board book which has cats Ammon can count and his favorite, a tiger to which Madeline says, “pooh pooh!”.

Lydia is going through a phase where she is super picky about how her clothes sit on her. We think this was brought on by school and by the fact that she was traumatized to not have the proper shoes for school. The principal commented to her about her shoes before I had a chance to write the principal and explain that we were getting the shoes this weekend, and that comment scarred Lydia.

She stares in the mirror and wants everything to be perfect. Her tucked in shirt must not have a single wrinkle in its 360 degree circumference, her collar needs to be exactly even and lay straight on both sides, her skirt has to hit at exactly the right spot on her waist, and her sweaters need to lay impossibly straight and even on her torso. Abe and I have both banned her from the mirror because it just causes her to melt down and scream.

Mary has had a couple days without tantrums! We are crossing our fingers and hoping for the best.

Mary and Lydia are both doing great with our new earlier bedtime. We have them listen to audiobooks and finish up with Enya or some other calm, usually new-agey music before bed. They have burned through the entire Ramona collection (28 hours) in about a week (this was before school when Lydia could listen to it during the day too), and now they’re onto Henry Huggins. Abe downloaded Overdrive today because we will go broke buying audiobooks on Audible at this rate.

But outdoor play and audible have almost completely eliminated our need for screen time. The girls barely had any screen time at all this summer, and in fact ever since we started home schooling a year and a half ago, our screen time cut down pretty drastically. This makes me very happy.

Clarissa is basically a kitten and we love her so much. She sleeps a lot, eats a lot, and when she’s awake, she’s usually quiet and alert. She is a perfect baby. She also can lift her head! Today we all watched her do pushups for five minutes on the boppy pillow. We were amazed.

We are excited for Abe to have the day off tomorrow and are looking forward to this week ahead.

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.

With the new school schedules, Friday feels like a high holiday or something. It is SO fantastic to have the weekend to look forward to–and a long weekend at that!

Abe celebrated with the kids by having a dance party to a snazzy version of “Pioneer Children Sang as They Walked.”  Clarissa and I hung out on the couch and observed, my mom snapped pictures, and Abe and the rest of the kids had the greatest time.