I kicked it up into high gear this evening because awesome Abe took the kids to a restaurant for dinner (our Groupon expires Saturday), and he gave me the whole evening to: practice piano, clean the house, listen to conference talks and go do Bikram yoga. Right now I am sweaty and undoing all of that hard work by gorging on the lamb Abe brought back from the restaurant. It is SO good. Yum.
Lydia got her second–and third and fourth and fifth–kiss from a boy today! (My mission companion’s son, Markus, gave her her first a year ago.) This time Nathan at preschool leaned over, gently held Lydia’s head, and kissed her approximately four times on the cheek. It was so cute. No pictures, though. I retired my camera after almost crippling little Hannah in an attempt to take a photo earlier of Sarah’s lesson.
I did, however take a bunch of pictures before my unfortunate incident with poor little Hannah.
Lydia was so good at preschool that I offered to take her to the library on our way home, even though Mary was conked out and slept through the entire unbuckling-buckling process.
When we got home, the girls were on different nap schedules, so after feeding them both separate lunches, I bought myself time for reading scriptures and my novel–and then napping–by letting Lydia bond with Dora the Explorer. After Mary and I woke up, I fed them both again and took them outside to read books until Abe came home. He changed and joined us on the lawn.
Lydia and I spent a lot of time bonding today. I hope I communicated love to her, even though I have SO far to go in basically every aspect of motherhood.Then Abe and Mary picked some tomatoes from the garden. I didn’t realize they could ripen outside after a frost! They were delicious.Mary was especially excited about the tomato. Look at that damage she did all by herself–with only two bottom teeth!Post-tomato, messy cuddle. A high point in my day.
After that, Abe, like the knight in shining armor he is, proceeded to take the girls for the rest of the evening. He is traveling tomorrow, so the next time the girls will see him after tomorrow morning is Friday. At least that’s my justification for letting them all go off together so I could do my thing(s).
Tomorrow I sign up at the Art Institute for culinary school!!!!! I am so excited!!!!!! (I’m going part time–details more forthcoming tomorrow, when it is final and more pertinent.)
I took too many pictures today. But you know what? When I’m old and can’t move around much, I’ll tell you what I’ll be doing in my abundant free time (assuming I can see). I’ll be reading this blog and remembering the good life God gave me. Also, my favorite part of reviewing my blog is looking at the pictures. Sometimes, when I’m long winded (this paragraph is already looking slightly fat to me), I just skip reading what I’ve written and go straight to the pictures.
So I’ll make it easy on my future geriatric self and skip straight to the pictures today.
I babysat Sarah’s kids, Nathan and Hannah, today. They are angelic, cute, polite, and great at sharing. What a breeze.Mary attempting to walk today. She’s been trying for about a month now, but she’s still at the step-step-step-KERPLUNK stage.Collaboration. It happened for hours, and it warmed my heart so. Also, Mary spent a lot of time today perusing books on her own. Again, the temperature of my heart shot right up.I tried to take some pictures of the kids and sneak this tree in as background, but it didn’t work. Finally, I gave up and took a picture just of the tree. It makes me happy at all times of year, but right now–get a load of that yellow!!Sweet Hannah. She talks so well. She’s only two months older than Mary, who still says only “Mamamama”–and we’re not always sure she’s referring to me!THIS was my major accomplishment of the day. If you read this blog, you know that at this stage of my life there is nothing I hate more than meal time. But today–wow! The kids all ate, kept their bibs on, stayed in their seats, said please AND thank-you (knock me over with a feather!) and even picked up food they dropped on the floor (okay, pick me up for real now because I really did just faint right on down).Smiling, happy Nathan. Lydia learned how to say “you’re welcome” today because Nathan says “thank-you” that much.Sorry, but I kind of reveled in this marvelous meal time. I took a lot more shots than this, trust me.Before the play date ended, Lydia gave us a concert. We have been working on curved fingers and no banging since before she could talk or walk or possibly even hold up her own head… At any rate, look at those fingers!After the play date we went outside and discovered it was another beautiful day.And so after naps, we walked to the library. Here’s Lydia trying to convince me to read “one last book” (for the fourth time…I am easy to convince.).Here she is showing me her “trick.” =) Also, you might note that this is her third pair of pants today. I keep putting her in pull-ups for: church, preschool, and most other outings (not this one!), and so she’s regressing. I need to just STOP the pull-ups, but I just can’t. Yet.Abe met us at the library and took the girls so I could walk to my visiting teachee’s house. She wasn’t home, but on the way I could not get over the beautiful, lacy patterns the trees made in the sky.
..Aaaaaannd I found out at the library that the book I just started today (The Lonely Polygamist), is due in a matter of days. I love it so far, and so here’s me finishing this blog entry so I can hurry up and get to my book.
Do you ever resolve to do something and find your resolve tested within the minute of your resolution? This morning during breakfast I vowed to myself that I would speak kindly and gently to my children (with an eye toward Abe’s Sunday lesson and the FHE lesson tonight), but I found my dialogue going something like this.
I will be kind and gentle to my chil–
LYDIA STOP THAT RIGHT NOW!!! YOU ARE GOING TO BREAK THAT!!!! IF YOU DON’T START LISTENING I AM GOING TO PUT YOU IN THE CLOSET!!!!
Rinse and repeat five times within five minutes. I felt very discouraged by the end of breakfast.
Actually, I was so discouraged I just gave up and let Lydia go to town messing up the entire downstairs while I prepared tonight’s dinner–ten hours early. We ate it cold.
She did help some, though.
Eying the eggplant.And then salting it (liberally).
And it was fun to see her imagination at work in the absence of Dora the Explorer. She kept bringing me presents from all around the house until I only had the space of my cutting board to work. Every other square inch of counter kitchen space was occupied.
After she dumped the entire contents of a dining room drawer onto the kitchen floor, I decided Dora did have a place in our lives after all. I stuck Lydia in front of Dora, placed her lunch there too, and ran some of my stress off on the treadmill.
On the floor: the contents of a dining room drawer. Lydia excitedly explained they were gifts for me, and I could use them to wipe: the floor, the counter, and my bottom.
When Mary woke up, I fed her lunch and played with the kids until nap time…
cute shot of them playing
…at which point I took an hour long nap myself. After I woke up, I lay on the bed in a stupor for another twenty minutes, at which point I decided to fold some laundry and call my friend, Candice, who recently moved to St. George. It was great catching up with her.
Then the girls woke up. Actually, Mary woke up first and we did our daily diaper run to the outside garbage can. During that “outing,” I realized it was gorgeous out and resolved to take the girls on a walk. Accordingly, I woke Lydia up.
After her naps, Lydia is normally…sad. That is code for “she wakes up screaming.” Today she screamed for forty-five minutes straight. The premise of her tantrum: I refused to feed her until she went to the bathroom. This made her so mad that she screamed and screamed until thirty minutes later she peed in her pants. When I tried to stick her in the shower to clean her off, she screamed so loudly I figured that if our neighbors are people of conscience, they would dial DCFS right away.
After another ten minutes of screaming, Lydia suddenly sniffled and said, “I feel much better.” Nary a scream or sob issued from her mouth for the rest of the day.
Feeling mighty pleased with this happy change of events, I packed the girls in the jogger and walked them nine blocks straight downhill (read: straight uphill upon return) to the park.
Would you guess that a mere seven minutes prior to this picture, Lydia was caught deep in the throes of her own fury? She clearly got it all out of her system.It was a gorgeous-beyond-belief walk to the park. This is what large stretches of the sidewalk looked like.Like this, too.At the park.
Abe drove past us on his way home from work. He drove home, threw on his running clothes, and ran to meet us.At the top of the street, I was still enamored with the colors. They didn’t quite come through on the camera, but that spectacular bush in the foreground is vibrantly multi-colored. A true beauty.
When we got back, we ate my disappointing dinner (which, incidentally, took me hours of preparation this morning–I hope culinary school will bring me more success in this department!), had Family Home Evening, and put the kiddos to bed.
Eggplant rollatini with cornbread stuffing and tomato sauce. A ridiculous amount of work (make cornbread. Make stuffing. Salt, rinse, blot, bake innumerable slices of eggplant. Make a tomato sauce, stuff, roll, bake, and plate.) And for what?! An unsightly dish that, while satisfying, definitely did not knock my socks off.I had high hopes for eggplant dish #2, wherein I simply broiled fresh mozzarella, Gorgonzola, and goat cheese on top of baked rounds of eggplant. I’d spent the day gorging on Gorgonzola, so eating this at the end of the day was just too much.
Tomorrow I am babysitting for a friend, and I am contemplating the possibility of not tidying my house before going to bed tonight. After all, it always gets trashed on play dates, so why bother picking up now? On the other hand, I might not sleep as well knowing there is stuff strewn about in literally every room of my house…
Today Abe had to pass the sacrament at the hospital, so I had to get the girls fed, dressed, and ready for church by myself. We arrived approximately forty-five minutes late. Good things Mormons have three hours of church every Sunday! That means that even though I missed my favorite teacher for Relief Society, I still got all of Sunday School AND Sacrament meeting in.
Sunday School was all about what it means to minister to the poor. Whenever these lessons are taught, someone inevitably points out that there are many ways to be “poor,” and that our call to minister to the poor is broader than simply doling out money. I agree, sort of. But I agree more with this: at the end of the day, there are people in the world whose problems could be resolved by money. We, middle class citizens of a first world country, should be giving them ours. That simple.
[pause in blogging] Abe just came down and talked to me for a while about the lesson he’s teaching next Sunday. The topic he was assigned is “talking to our children with gentleness and mildness.” He was really excited because in the Book of Mormon, when the people are trying to kill two prophets, God surrounds the prophets with fire and then proceeds to chasten the people in a voice of perfect mildness and gentleness. The point here: Even when we do crazy awful things like try to kill a prophet, God speaks gently and mildly to us; therefore, we should always speak gently and mildly to our children–no matter what.
I pointed out that if we could surround our children with a pillar of fire anytime they were doing something heinous, we wouldn’t need to yell either. We could just whisper directions all day long, and our children would be perfectly behaved. Poor Abe left scratching his head. Sometimes I wonder what God is going to do with me.
So back to the day. After church, we ate lunch, I got a blessing from Abe (about culinary school–I am going!!!!!!), we took naps, and we played in the living room for an hour before Skyping with one set of Abe’s grandparents. I played the piano for them, and that felt like the perfect channel for all the practicing I’ve gotten in lately.
I finished making Mary’s birthday cake after church, and Lydia wanted to lick the chocolate hazelnut mousse whip.We spent a lot of time lying around while the girls destroyed the house.I played the piano with the blinds up. Getting that much sun is SO bad for the piano, but felt so delicious to me.
After Skyping, we went to the Miners’ house for dinner and family birthday celebrations.
In front of the Miner’s house, I was fussing with Mary’s car seat, and I looked up to catch Abe smiling sweetly at me. I killed the spontaneity of it by making him hold the smile so I could take a picture and remember the moment.
They were doing September and October birthdays, so Mary (Sept 27th!) got a cake and presents. She was pretty cute.
Mary liked her cake and presents.She even helped with unwrapping.And she had an all-around great time.Lydia spent most of that time navigating the tricky territory of toddler sharing.It’s just easier when everyone is in their own separate sphere and sharing is not an issue.
Then we came home and I played the piano for another hour while Abe kindly bathed the girls.
After her bath, Lydia was distraught that she could not figure out how to put her pants on correctly. (She had both legs in the same pant leg.) I was mean and took a picture–at Abe’s request, though!!!
After that, I wasted time online and picked up the messy house. Abe just came down to check to see if I’m done blogging yet, and so–
The first activity of note today was the farmer’s market. We got ourselves there by 1pm. (Excessive laziness marked the time leading up to this outing.)Two years of unsupportive nursing bras will make you look like this. When you have a baby, please buy more than two nursing bras, and for heaven’s sake, buy new ones for baby number 2.We met up with Karin and Jay (Abe’s mom and stepdad) at the market. They are the sweet couple on the right.Today was the last day of the outdoor market. Here’s the owner of the limeade stand packing up. After I took this shot, he said, “See you next year!” That made me sad.After the market, I went to Tony Caputo’s for more cheese. Lydia was confused about why I did not buy her a happy hippo.The reason I did not buy her a happy hippo was because we were going straight to lunch with Karin and Jay. Karin had a birthday this week, so we celebrated at The Wild Grape.Karin and Jay and the Wild Grape’s grapevine in the background.Martha Stewart proudly told me that her grandchildren do NOT use electronics in restaurants. But, I just would like to point out, her two grandchildren have five–count ’em–five nannies.And I’ll tell you what, this one kept me pretty busy the entire two hours we lingered at our table.
After lunch, I was in a carb coma and lay unmoving on the bed for a while. When I came to, I dictated a children’s book I’ve been thinking about into Abe’s phone. I’m so excited about it! The main character is a dog who lives in my old Chicago neighborhood, and her owner is a lovely Muslim lady named Fatima (I think). I just want to make a small contribution to the misunderstanding going on the world at present, and so I thought that helping to normalize the “other”–even in a simple way–might help.
After we recovered from our comas, I played a little piano concert for my beloved mom and grandma over the phone (Skype wasn’t working), and then Abe and I took the girls on a run around the canyon. His only goal for the day was to do the run, and by the time I got my act together, we were staring down the prospect of running in the dark. Thankfully, that motivated us to move fast [a totally relative, nay–hyperbolic– term] enough to make it home before it was pitch black out.
After dinner, I abandoned Abe and went on the grocery shopping rounds I neglected to make this morning. While I was gone, he bathed the girls and put them to bed.
While Abe was dressing Mary, Lydia poured the entire bottle of bubble bath in the bath. Abe decided to let her enjoy the bubbles tonight, but we are not buying her any more bubble bath for the next couple months (according to Abe, who does not do the grocery shopping).
After I came home, I cleaned our dee-sgusting kitchen and started making Mary’s birthday cake for her celebration at the Miners’ (Suzanne’s parents’) house tomorrow. Abe helped pick up the house, and I think he is currently passed out on the bed right now. Let me end this now and get my stinky self in the shower so that I can go to bed soon.
Last night Lydia had an accident at 1am, so I cleaned her up and brought her into bed with me. As delightful it was to sleep next to such a sweet little heater, sleep was lighter from there on out.
Lydia made up for my light sleep by sitting in front of Dora the Explorer and Harry the Bunny for two hours (eep!) while I studied my scriptures, ran on the treadmill, and showered. (Mary, thank the stars, naps all morning with the exception of breakfast.)
After Mary woke up from her nap, I fed the girls lunch and hauled them to the Discovery Museum for an hour. Lydia didn’t want to leave, and I did not feel up to carrying her kicking and screaming in one arm while holding Mary in the other…so I bribed her to leave with cookies. I felt like a bad mom, especially because the minute Mary saw the cookies she practically foamed at the mouth until I gave her some. I am SO worried about her sugar addiction, and I feel really bad every time I find myself giving her sugar. It shouldn’t be that hard to just not give her any, right?!
Mary liked the little car.She liked it so much that Lydia got jealous and found herself a car, too.
We came home and the girls passed out long enough for me to embroider and hem some fabric for a baby skirt. Our friend, Aria, just had a baby, and I have been meaning to get this skirt made for months. Now the baby’s been here for practically two weeks, and I am just now getting around to the project.
I distinctly remembering embroidering in front of Thomas the Train and Lamb Chops, so it’s been a while. It took me until “Olive” to get back in the swing of things, and the result is: this skirt will be one of those “thought-that-counts” presents.
When the girls woke up from their naps, we went on an “outing” to the garbage to throw away the many poopy diapers Mary produced today, and then the girls had dinner.
After dinner, Lydia insisted that she wanted to read to Mary and play with Mary…without me. A host of emotions ensued. First off, I completely understand why playing without me is, as Lydia said, more fun. I always point out the ways various activities she’s engaged in can end in her demise. One particularly embarrassing example of this occurred last week. The back door was open and I was scolding Lydia loudly for hanging onto the book shelf. I described to her in graphic, gory detail what it would feel like if the shelf fell on her and she died and or got maimed and or got dismembered. Our sweet, angelic, seventy-three year old landlord happened to pass by the open door during my diatribe, and he was clearly shocked. I was embarrassed, but not embarrassed enough to change my ways. So no wonder Lydia doesn’t want to play with me!
It still hurts, though.
On the other hand, the fact that she successfully entertained Mary without my supervision translated into more free time for me, so being kicked out of their play time wasn’t exactly terrible. I got an hour of piano practice in.
What am I practicing for? I have no idea. I said in a recent blog I play for myself and my family, and that’s true. But I also realize that having a goal might help focus my practice, so I am considering entering some amateur competitions. You have to be 35 for the Van Cliburn, so I have four and a half years to get myself in shape.
Abe got home from his trip at 8pm, and I immediately ran to the piano for another hour of practice. And now it’s blogging time, and soon–sleepy time. Hooray! We made it to the weekend! In fact, since my house always gets trashed on the weekend, I am not picking up tonight as a nod to that sad reality.
When Kristin was here with her girls two (?) weeks ago, we talked some about happiness. She told me that happiness is like pearls on a string; the pearls are moments of joy linked together by the string of normal (less joyful) life. I like that.
I’ll tell you what my string is: Mealtime. I keep hoping I’ll become a more patient person so that feeding my children does not make me want to weep with frustration, but right now I’m not there. Tonight Mary screamed from the moment I put her into her high chair until I gave her a bottle after her bath (one hour later). She provided a similar soundtrack for her three other meals as well.
BUT. But. That is actually the only string I can think of today. The rest of the day felt like a concentrated series of pearls. E.g., we went to the library and read books on the crunchy leaves outside. (Actually, just one book by my favorite children’s author, Jan Brett. Doesn’t her art just transport you? And the text is pretty darn good, too!)
We spent hours playing on the floor and reading books at home, and I even got over an hour of piano practice in–with Abe out of town! A minor miracle. I’m learning the Chopin nocturne I listened to while giving birth to Lydia, and whenever I hear it I feel overcome with love and emotion. After Mary’s fourth meal, I NEEDED that music in my life.
I also took the girls to the playground. It was chilly and they both have runny noses, but I figured it was sunny out, and we needed sun.
Today was also the first day in a while where Lydia’s iPad usage was under five minutes long. That, for me, is a record. I just decided to see what would happen if I studied my scriptures and tried to take a nap without sticking an iPad in front of Lydia, and guess what? It wasn’t the end of the world. Granted, my study and nap were frequently interrupted because Lydia parked herself and her toys right next to me on the bed, but I loved the interruptions because they frequently ended in cuddles. More pearls!
Speaking of pearls…:
I resolved to take just one picture, put my camera away and spend the rest of the time playing with the girls. Also, I wanted a shot of the beautiful day and the park with mountains in the background.My resolve lasted approximately half a minute.Whee! (Actually, that’s me whee-ing. Lydia enjoyed the slide a bit more soberly.)Mary really wanted to climb the climbing wall. After I took this photo, I helped her out, and she grinned and giggled the whole way up.Lydia saw this bench and said, “Mama, I s’pose we could have a picnic on this bench.” At that moment, all I wanted in the world was for pre-park me to have packed a picnic basket. I s’pose it would have been a lovely experience. Also, Mary really just wanted to climb stuff today. (Very funny, considering she can only walk a couple steps at a time.)
I found out this morning that I put the wrong date on Mary’s birthday evites. Oops! But guess what? The date I selected turns out to be October 26, so that means I have an entire week longer than I thought. Phew.
Also, thanks to all for your prayers and good thoughts for Abe. He had an excellent, successful morning, and we are grateful for all the love and cheering on he’s gotten.
Lydia had preschool this morning, and Sarah (one of the other moms) had to walk and take Trax around downtown to complete some errands. Mary and I tagged along and got our daily dose of vitamin D. It was nice to remember we live in a city! Even though our neighborhood is right next to downtown, it feels very separate and suburban-like. I loved our urban morning. While we were walking up Main Street, I even popped into the jeweler’s store that made Swathi’s engagement ring, and they cleaned my ring for free. Right next door was a new boulangerie, and I regretted blowing my weekly budget this past Saturday; I really wanted to try something! Good reason to go back when my budget resets in two days…
Then I picked up Lydia and we all went home where Abe joined us for lunch. After that, we drove to the Art Institute to talk to an admissions officer about their culinary program and tour the campus. I really want to go to that culinary school. My one problem is childcare. I can’t figure that out quite yet, but maybe an answer will present itself soon. In the meantime, the tour was awesome.
After the tour, we drove to Temple Square and I popped into the temple to do initiatories while Abe wandered around the square with the girls. In the bathroom, who should I bump into but Suzanne (Abe’s stepmom!). It was so fun to see her, and we got to chat again on the square after I was done in the temple.
Then Abe, the girls and I went to the downtown Olive Garden to use up a gift card we had. All I can say about that is, almost five hours later, I still have a stomachache.
When we got home, Abe let me practice the piano for two hours while he bathed the girls and got them ready for bed. Between Liszt and the sheer abundance of me-time, I was in heaven–but I did have this thought: did I spend thousands of hours of my childhood practicing…for this? Practicing so one day I could be background music as my husband chased my squealing girls (who were giggling so hard there’s no way they were paying the least bit attention to the music) above me?
And I came to the conclusion: Yes! Absolutely, this is what I practiced for. I practiced so someday I would have a skill set that freed my soul to self-actualize joyfully AND communicated to my children the value of music. Even if that communication takes the basic form of osmosis, it still conveys my hope that my children will become stewards of an ever-less appreciated art form.
After the girls went to bed, I walked into the kitchen expecting a huge mess. To my delight, Abe had cleaned most of it already. I have no idea when he even found time to do that! If it isn’t obvious, I kind of idolize my husband. Sometimes that mindset has its own set of problems, but seriously. Abe is awesome/scarily perfect at times. I am never scarily perfect (hence my problems).
Here’s a picture that Abe took at the north visitor’s center on Temple Square:
Did anyone see the most recent Smitten Kitchen blog? I checked it today and could not believe my eyes: Deb posted a glorious recipe for purple plum torte. This is relevant to my life. Highly relevant, because today I made the spur-of-the-moment decision that we are having a birthday party for Mary. Not only that, but it is going to be a Very Hungry Caterpillar party (inspired by this post on Preethi’s blog).
If you recall, the very hungry caterpillar eats, among other things, plums. Now if you don’t see the hand of God in the very hungry caterpillar’s preferences and the most recent post by Deb, then perhaps you did not feel the same sense of panic I did when I clicked out my evites today. What was I thinking?! Abe has a HUGE day tomorrow, and he’s out of town the following two days. And I have committed us to hosting a rather large party the afternoon after he flies in. Breathe.
I used to read The Babysitter’s Club books the same way I currently eat chocolate. In one quite memorable book, Claudia has an identity crisis because she thinks her parents adopted her and never let her know. Come to find out, her parents were just worn down because she was the second child, and they just never took the time to photograph her or dote on her the same way they did her older sister. That story stuck with me, and whenever I feel like I’m slacking off in the Mary department, Claudia’s tween trauma flits through my mind. As I was deliberating about whether to do anything about Mary’s birthday (which happened a month ago), I remembered Claudia…the next thing I knew, I’d sent out evites to, um, a large contingency of our local friends.
So that’s where my energy will be for the rest of the week. I did, however, put some effort today into non-party things. For example, I changed the sheets, sneaked a shower (while Lydia cried downstairs), took the girls to the library, made butternut squash soup, cleaned the kitchen, practiced the piano, and had Family Home Evening (one day late, since Abe was gone yesterday). Here are the pics from those parts of the day:
I roasted beets last night while I was cleaning. Beets are our family’s favorite food. Lydia found the beets and ate them like this after breakfast.Outside the library, I introduced the girls to the texture of bark. They were enamored for the next five minutes.Inside the library Mary tried to woo my attention away from the story I was reading to Lydia by playing peek-a-boo with me.She may or may not have succeeded.She spotted the lens cap of the camera on the floor and made a beeline.I think the girls missed Abe. This is how the three of them ate dinner. (Well, Mary and Lydia had already eaten for an hour and half by this time, but they were more than willing to eat again with Daddy.)My view from the piano. My cup runneth over, truly. Just look at that sky! And the camera doesn’t capture it, but the mountains are all around. Tonight was a clear night, and we felt happy to be residents of Utah.
If you think of it, please say a prayer or think good thoughts for Abe tomorrow! It’s a big day for him. Email me for details if curious since we can’t disclose on the blog.
I woke up this morning and knew that today was the day my house WOULD get clean. I resolved to put my children’s needs ahead of my goal, but I also promised myself that by the end of today, my whole house would be organized, picked up and sanitary.
I made little progress on that goal until I put the children to bed at 8:30pm. Between that time and now, I have reached my goal. I am so tempted to type the details of what went into accomplishing that feat, but I think that would make me look vapid and vain. So I’ll keep those [vapid and vain] thoughts to myself, and I’ll just tell you that right now I feel great about life.
Also, Lydia has been taking her angel pills lately. While I was organizing my closet this morning, she came over and–out of the blue–started giving me a foot massage. I eventually had to sit down because she was so intent on doing a good job. I love her.
Additionally, I realized I need to take a chill pill on 1) spills and 2) accidents. First of all, I, a thirty-year-old woman, still spill things, so surely I should not be shaming my little two-year-old for spilling her water. (!!) Secondly, I should cut her some slack in the accident department. This evening, Lydia had an accident right before bed, and I was about to get upset when she started apologizing all over the place. She apologized all the way to the bathroom, and then when I was saying our night prayer, she interrupted me to petition God for help so she wouldn’t have any more accidents. I felt appropriately awful about myself. From here on out I AM going to be a nicer mom. I hope, I pray.
Speaking of how I need to be nicer, here’s some visual evidence that I have ample room for improvement.
Mary didn’t get much of an afternoon nap, and so I had to hold her at all times. At one point, I got tired, put her down, and took a picture of what happens when I put her down. Please note that I did not deprive her of food, attention (I was taking a picture of her, hello!!!) or love. I just put her down. Yes, this is my life right now.
I suspected I wouldn’t have time to take more pictures today, so I prolonged Mary’s distress long enough to take one shot of Lydia. I just wanted to memorialize this day marked by so much angelic behavior.
I also abandoned Mary as soon as it started hailing outside. Leaving Mary wailing in her high chair, I ran to Lydia and carried her outside as fast as possible so she could learn about hail. I have no idea why I thought it was so important that she experience hail, but at the time it seemed urgent. I must be sleep deprived or something.
The only other thing of note today was my phone conversation with my mom and grandma. They are so sweet.
My grandma did not want me to Facebook this picture, but I forgot to ask permission about the blog. Grandma, I’ll take it down if you want, but you look so fantastic that I just had to put it up, at least for a little bit!Abe’s traveling today, and during our phone conversation tonight, it seemed to make perfect sense for him to send me a picture of his dinner. I don’t even know why I’m including this in the blog–maybe just so Abe is represented a little bit in the day? I don’t know.
