Author: lilydarais

After the terrible morning of Ammon’s escape, we went to the Natural History Museum to decompress. Truth be told, I was still keyed up, but the kids all had a great time.

There were lots of amazing displays, my favorite being one which debuted in Paris in 1867. It featured an Arab traveling on camel getting attacked by lions. I had never conceived of such a scenario, but after seeing the display, I can’t conceive how I never thoroughly thought through the danger of camel travel before. Of course lions would be a threat. The Arab looked how I felt during my run-in with the police.

After the museum, we went to Five Guys. We tried to go to a local Pittsburgh restaurant, but it was packed. Five Guys had space for our large crowd.

In the evening Clark and Swathi were brave and put down tarp for a play-doh party. The kids all had a blast.

On Friday morning the police banged on the door. When I opened it, the policeman flashed me a picture of Ammon and said, “Do you know this child?”

“That’s my son!” I exclaimed.

“Do you know he’s been missing for two hours? He’s down in the lobby.”

I had no idea. It turns out that during the five minute window when there happened to be no adults in the living room, Ammon had climbed out of the pack’n play and let himself out of the bedroom and into the apartment hall. This would have been at 5:30am Utah time, so I didn’t even think to check on him. At the time the policemen knocked, Mary was still sound asleep in the room where Ammon had been and the doors were closed.

The next twenty minutes were some of the worst in my life. The policeman yelled at me like I was a criminal for not checking on my son and kept interrupting me whenever I tried to explain. At home we have doorknobs, not pull-down handles, and Ammon never opens the doors. It never occurred to me that Ammon would wake up that early and let himself out, and since the door to his room was closed I had no reason to believe he wasn’t sleeping in his crib next to his (still) sleeping sister.

The policeman informed me that he was very close to writing me up and having child protective services investigate the situation, and that if more time had elapsed they would have taken Ammon into foster care and I would have had to go to court to get him back.

At that point I started crying. CPS is one of my absolute worst nightmares. Ever since I gave birth to Lydia, I have been terrified of this organization. I have heard so many horror stories about good parents who have had their kids taken away, and it seems that a lot of kids in terrible situations grow up in those without anyone ever intervening. I think the organization does a terrible job and hate that it exists.

And the thought that my worst nightmare almost happened practically gave me a heart attack. Also, the police officer was a total jerk. I am sorry to have to write that about anyone, and I know he is a child of God, but nevertheless, that’s what he was to me. If most policeman are like him, I can totally see why people fear and hate the police. I definitely don’t see them as friends after what happened on Friday. Stay away from me and my family, jerks.

On the other hand, I am infinitely grateful that there were people who found Ammon and cared about him enough to knock on doors and find his parents. These people also happened to be police officers, so I guess at the end of the day, the most important thing is that we have Ammon back and that he’s not going into foster care.

That night Clark set up his monitors and we barricaded the doors so that Ammon couldn’t leave. We watched him fall asleep on the big screen. I think it’s common for people to watch football this time of year, but we were busy watching Ammon try to climb out of his crib. Abe would go into the room every time we saw Ammon swing his foot over the side, and Ammon’s face would crumple and he would let out a disappointed wail every time he saw Abe.

Sorry, buddy, but we’re not sharing you with CPS anytime soon.

Clark and Swathi hosted a big crowd for Thanksgiving. On Swathi’s side there was Balu and Sruthi, and on Clark’s side we had the cousins, Louie, Benjie, and their families. It was so fun to see everyone. Clark cooked the most amazing dinner, and we were in awe that both he and Swathi pulled off such a beautiful event–especially with Swathi in her third trimester!!

 

Balu took some great pictures after dinner of different families.

The kids had fun playing together with all of their cousins.

On Wednesday we left for Pittsburgh to reunite with family for Thanksgiving. Our flight was at 4pm, so I spent the morning getting ready. Lydia accompanied me to Target to find kid-sized headphones and new coloring things for the plane. I was terrified about flying with Ammon, so we stocked up on activities and snacks.

We got to the airport early in anticipation of Thanksgiving traffic. The radio reported that there were fifty-million people traveling. As we pulled into our parking spot at the airport, the car behind us started honking. It turned out to be Abe’s friend, Eric, from work. We were really grateful for the coincidence because he helped us with all of our luggage. I got our family of six down to two backpacks, a carry-on sized roller bag, a snack bag, a small duffel, and a laptop bag, but with the two strollers it was still a lot to manage.

We were shocked to discover that there was literally no line at security. As in: there was not a single person in front of us. We walked through. We had enough time to eat a leisurely, overpriced meal at the airport before boarding our flight to Chicago.

Our layover was pretty short, but we had no trouble catching our next flight to Pittsburgh. We landed around 11pm, and Clark came to pick us up. We squeezed most of us into his car and Abe and Lydia took an Uber over to Clark’s apartment.

How did the kids do on the flight? Clarissa was a peach. I swaddled her, attached her to myself, and she basically nursed and slept the whole way to Pittsburgh. Lydia and Mary were highly entertained by the plane activities we brought, and Ammon…let’s just say, Abe is an amazing parent. He patiently entertained Ammon the whole way to Pittsburgh. It took a lot of focus and infinite amounts of creativity to keep Ammon happy in his confined space. Thank goodness Abe is one of the most creative people on the planet. He kept Ammon very happy.

While we drove, Clark expounded on the amazingness of Pittsburgh. Here were his talking points:

1. Pittsburgh was the home of the Industrial Revolution’s tycoons, and so it is the only rust belt city to not go rusty.

2.There is a lot of money in Pittsburgh that keeps its economy robust, and there is a psychic connection between New York and Pittsburgh. (See number one.)

3. Pittsburgh is also home to two great universities, the University of Pittsburgh (Swathi’s alma mater!) and Carnegie Mellon. Clark said Carnegie Mellon grads always stand out among the people he hires.  He feels they get a superior education.

4. They have one of the best medical systems in the country. This is good for Swathi, who is a doctor.

5. Sports. He said there was so much to say about this topic that he couldn’t even begin to cover it. (Also, I wasn’t the right audience to appreciate the topic.)

6. People who live in Pittsburgh love Pittsburgh, so said Clark.

He is clearly doing as the Romans do.

On Monday I drove past the dream home I found on Zillow, and then I texted Abe and asked if we could maybe make an appointment to walk through it with his dad sometime. Tom was so sweet and offered to come down in the evening.

The home was almost perfect. It didn’t have a great living solution for my mom and it was out of budget, but wow, did it have everything else down. On display in its office was a book that I have read and love, The Not So Big House. The book extolls the art of designing a house so that no space is wasted, and this house completely reflected that philosophy. I loved it so much.

I also died over the fact that next to the house was the sweetest mini-orchard and garden. I found out later that it doesn’t come with the house, but it was so over-the-top to have an orchard right there. Kitty corner from the house was an actual orchard, and, oh, it was beautiful.

But we can’t afford it, so I just content myself with dreaming about it all the time. It’s a nice place to go in my head when the clutter and dark color scheme in my house are driving me out of my mind.

On Sunday I taught a lesson about fellowshipping new members and less active members, and I learned so much from the comments of the class members. I loved hearing stories about how God ministered to them when they were the “lost sheep.”

Clarissa has needed more attention this weekend, so after church I nursed her a bunch and then made some minestrone and pumpkin cookies. Mary helped me make the pumpkin cookies.

After dinner Abe held a fabulous FHE. He taught a lesson on the Sabbath day, and he used our wagon of blocks to show the kids how we take out activities we normally do and replace them with worshipful activities on Sunday. He did a great job teaching.

Normally the kids are all in bed by 7:30, but yesterday they were wired. At 8pm they were all still awake. Perhaps the kids’ game of “lost at sea” made them hyper.

Then when the girls went into their room, Ammon built his own boat.

On Saturday Abe and I slept in, but the kids got up late so we still squeezed in Insanity. I hadn’t worked out since re-pulling my groin, and we were both exhausted from the exertion for the rest of the day.

We mostly spent the day cleaning the house. I prepared my lesson for Sunday while looking for houses on Zillow. No matter how much we Marie Kondo the house, it always feels cluttered. That leads me to believe it is slightly small for seven people, and then I daydream on Zillow. I found the PERFECT house, but it was twice as expensive as our current house, and we just can’t afford it. Even if we could buy it, we’d probably walk around feeling broke all of the time, and that’s no fun either. I spent the rest of the day feeling slightly depressed.

Abe did an AMAZING job cleaning the house, though, so that helped.

Mary has been begging to put up our Christmas lights, so Abe obliged and put them up yesterday. Lydia spent a minute outside before declaring it was way too cold and hastily retreated to the house. Mary gleefully shivered her way through putting up the lights, and then she colored pictures of Santa, reindeer, and such and taped them to our front door. Instead of a wreath, pictures currently adorn our door.

On Friday I took Ammon, Mary, and Clarissa to the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point. We were going to go to the zoo again for Mary’s 100 chart reward, but on the way it started hailing. We opted for the indoor museum instead.

When we left, Ammon threw a huge, uncharacteristic tantrum because he wanted to dig in the other pit. I had Clarissa strapped to my front, and I somehow dragged Ammon and the stroller to the far, far away front door and out into the hail. Once we reached the outdoors, Ammon threw himself down on the ground in the hail. By the grace of God and with Mary sweetly pushing the stroller, I managed to drag Ammon through icy puddles and to the car. It was a nightmare, but we survived.

In the afternoon Abe played in the Qualtrics bowl. He was a superstar! He made a lot of amazing plays and got called MVP by some of his friends. This was extremely comforting to Abe, who bemoans the deterioration of his body on a daily basis. He is continually amazed at how much less athletic he feels and how his body doesn’t do what he wants it to do. This, he has concluded, is a combination of aging and his desk job, in spite of his standing desk. His great playing in the Qualtrics football game put him on a high for the rest of the day and made him feel young again! It also made him sore all weekend long.

For dinner I was in the mood for some soup and quiche. It was cold outside! I made potato leek soup, arugula salad, and a spinach quiche. It felt like a nice ending to a crazy day. Since I made so much pie dough early in the week, it was a really easy, nice ending to a crazy day.

On Thursday I put Mary and Ammon in the basement while I focused just on Clarissa. I read to her, played with her, and dressed her up so I could take pictures of her.

This year I AM going to take a photography class. I really, really want to learn how to take good pictures. But in the meantime, isn’t Clarissa so cute?

In the evening I used leftover pie dough to make a soprasata quiche.

 

Today Mary hit one hundred on her Funny Bunny chart, and after school she suggested that we get ice cream to celebrate. The deal is she gets a field trip for every filled out chart, but since we can’t do that until Saturday, Mary thought ice cream would be an appropriate immediate celebration. The other kids concurred.

Ammon gets very excited about anything related to food and squawked out “I-Cweam!!” every time we got into the car after that. (He also dragged a chair over to the cookie jar today and discovered a bunch of candy that I didn’t even know was in there. I never use the cookie jar so I don’t understand how he knew it contained treats. He just has a special connection to beloved food items, I suppose.)

I also had a play date with my friend, Heather. Her daughter, Olivia, is literally the cutest girl I have ever laid eyes on. I love talking with Heather and bombarded her with questions. She works for Mormon.org and answers the hard questions that the Temple Square missionaries kick over to her. She was a joy to talk with.

Last night I pulled my groin AGAIN after taking a kicking, screaming, heavy Ammon out of the bath. The floor was wet and I slipped. My groin almost snapped in two! It really hurt. So today I rested a lot and limped when I wasn’t resting. Right now I am just sitting while typing and my groin is throbbing. I am so sad because I have been looking forward to doing Insanity with Abe tomorrow because he gets home in a couple hours and we were planning on hitting our work-out hard in the morning. Maybe it will heal overnight???? I can hope, right???