Author: lilydarais

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.

On Friday morning my mom and I were just talking about Clark and Swathi’s new baby and wondering about the gender when they called us! We both had said we were hoping for a girl so that they can have one of each, and guess what?? They are having a GIRL!!! We are so happy.

We are so excited. Baby put on a show for the ultrasound–she yawned! I had never seen such a fun ultrasound before.

Also, Clarissa will get a girl cousin her age!!! These two are going to be great friends, just like Ammon and Soren. We can’t wait to meet this new sweet little girl!!

On Thursdays Lydia has her harp lesson at 6am. Technically, this should not be an exceptionally early start because she is supposed to get up at 6am anyway to get her harp done before school, but I let that slide a couple days last week and let her do harp after school. So Thursday was a long day for Lydia.

My mom was so sweet in the morning and let Clarissa cuddle with her while I got ready for the day.

After school I let the girls play with the neighbors. Technically, Mary had lost her privileges by refusing to practice the piano, but I was not consistent about re-enforcing that and just let it slide. Sometimes it’s tiring to be perfectly consistent about everything.

The neighbors wanted to see Clarissa, so I let them hold her. Also, I spent a lot of time admiring the garden! I have barely ventured outside at all these past couple months, and the garden has just exploded. I hadn’t seen these sunflowers until this past week–that is how absentee I have been from my own backyard. They are amazing!! And I love the zinnias because I remember planting zinnias at my grandma’s house. They are such a cheerful flower.

Also, Abe continues to be able to throw Mary soooo high. See here:

Lydia’s limbs are too long for Abe to do this, and Ammon does not enjoy being thrown. But Mary loves it.

On Wednesday we all had pretty good days. Mary made it to bed without a single tantrum! We were on the edge quite a few times, but we survived without a full-scale Mary Meltdown. Whew!

I have started driving a little more. My mom is still helping with the drop-offs and pick-ups, but since both girls are in different schools, there are plenty of opportunities for both of us to drive A LOT. It’s a new stage of life, this two-kids-in-school thing. Hopefully by next week I will be able to do their full schedule.

I am going to be listening to a whole lot more of my favorite (only) radio stations: KBYU, KLOVE, and NPR. We spend a ton of time in the car waiting, waiting, waiting in the drop-off and pick-up lines at the girls’ schools. When I am not talking with my children, I can use that time listening to Christian singers sing the praise of Jesus, getting news updates, enjoying classical music, and listening to BYU devotionals. Hopefully it shouldn’t be too painful.

Abe continues to have crazy and good days at work. I was sitting at the piano with Mary when I watched him come home. He looked soooo tired, and I felt so sorry for him. I wish he had more time to himself. We finished the day by watching a little of The Office before going to bed at 9:30pm. We are in desperate need of humor by the end of the day, especially with Mary in the tender stage that she happens to be in.

My mom went to an institute class and had  a great time. She is going to try to go with friends next time so she doesn’t have to be alone after dark. Ever since she was assaulted a couple months ago, we get nervous when she is out alone after dark.

For dinner the Dallas manager sent us dinner. He has ordered dinner for us for FIVE nights. We are so sincerely grateful, even if we don’t have any plans to move to Dallas. (Although if we do, we feel fairly sure Abe would continue his I-have-the-most-amazing-boss streak!!)

 

Today was Lydia’s first day of school! We were a disorganized mess and didn’t take pictures before she left. Thankfully my mom took some of her at school.

I: Forgot to take her pictures at home, forgot to pack her lunch, forgot to send her to school with her backpack and getting-to-know-you bag, forgot entirely about school supplies and sent her to school with ZERO, and I forgot to buy her uniform-approved shoes. At least I remembered to pick her up from school.

My mom took her to the pancake breakfast at the start of the day, but because I forgot all of the above, they had to come back home and ended up almost missing the breakfast. Good thing Lydia was in a terrific mood and loved school! A little girl named Grace asked Lydia to be her best friend, and that made her whole day.

After I picked up the girls from their schools, we headed home to grab some climbing clothes for Lydia and then zipped off to Lydia’s first day of base climbing camp. It was a nightmare signing her up because I forgot to pack the stroller, and the parking lot was full. I parked out of the lot and carried Ammon (who is HUGE) and Clarissa across the parking lot and attempted to keep carrying Ammon throughout the sign-up process. That did not work, so I just darted around madly between signing forms to pull Ammon down from high places and rescue various store displays from him. Obviously, taking Lydia’s picture was not in the cards today.

Clarissa’s umbilical cord stump is falling off, and I kind of wonder if it bothers her. She is nursing non stop.

We are ready for bed, but Abe has so much work he will probably be up all night. 🙁

I got my Ancestry DNA results in! This, I imagine, will be somewhat interesting to future posterity. Here are the results:

ASIA: 37%

Asia East = 27%

Central Asia = 10% (This was shocking to me. Central Asia is, according to Ancestry: Afghanistan, Kyrgystan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Azerbaijan. I had no idea I had ancestors from this part of the world.

EUROPE: 53%

Scandinavia = 18% (This was another shocker! We have never traced any ancestry to Scandinavia before, so wow.)

Ireland = 12%

Great Britain = 9%

Iberian peninsula = 5%

Europe West 4%

Italy Greece = 3%

Finland/Northwest Russia = < 1%

European Jewish = <1% (I KNEW IT!! In my grandma’s wedding picture, there is a menorah on the mantle, she had a star of David ring, and her mother’s maiden name was “Becker” and hailed from Germany.)

PACIFIC ISLANDER = 9%

CAUCUS = <1% (Caucus is Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Georgia, and Armenia)

Anyway, I believe that these are just summations of how your DNA expresses your ancestry, which is why brothers and sisters have different maps. I really want to see what my brother’s DNA map says. I keep searching Ancestry.com to see if it shows a map of the U.S., because my mom’s DNA has a lot of U.S. origins and shows migration patterns to the States. Mine doesn’t show any of that. I’ll have to talk to our neighbor who actually heads the Ancestry DNA program and ask him my questions.

This morning Mary and Ammon danced to the music from Clarissa’s bassinet. I’m glad that bassinet is good for something! We tried to have Clarissa sleep in it for two nights, and each time she woke up every hour all night through. Finally we just brought her into bed with us, and that has been working a lot better. Abe and I can’t figure out why we did not co-sleep more with our other kids. I think they weren’t as bothered by the bassinet since it was always right next to me, but Clarissa definitely prefers to full-on co-sleep.

Abe took these pictures:

Today we had Clarissa’s newborn pictures taken. I feel eternal regret that we did not have this done for Mary, especially since I was bad about blogging almost the entire first year she was born. I have almost no pictures for her entire first year of life, and she was THE most adorable baby.

Anyway, I feel confident Lindsay Salazar did a great job. We met Lindsay in our Chicago ward, and I have seen her work on Facebook. She was in Seattle for a while, but since she moved to Utah I realized that we could have her take our pictures. That was exciting because she is so talented.

In the morning before Lindsay came, my mom held Clarissa so I could get ready.

Lydia had a harp rehearsal and Clarissa had to get her biliruben checked again, so we had the house to ourselves. We used the time to get ready for Lindsay.We did not know where she would shoot, so we cleaned everything. I have been bleeding heavily ever since, but the house is clean, so it feels worth it.

After the pictures with siblings and Abe, Abe took Mary and Ammon to get the car registered. While it was getting registered, they went to the pet store and then went to Zupas for lunch. Mary and Ammon are buddies these days.

The girls played outside with friends for the entire day (aside from the photo shoot), and so the house stayed clean! Sadly, the girls’ behavior deteriorates markedly after spending time running the neighborhood, so Mary had a MASSIVE meltdown before bed–the biggest of her life, and believe me, that is saying something. She is an expert tantrumer, but this night took the cake.Abe was absolutely incredible and so calm as he managed her. I learn a lot from the way he handles the kids.

Afterward, Abe and I tried to talk about how to handle Mary. We ended up feeling worn out and confused, so we just ended up watching three episodes of The Office instead. It helped us feel positive about life again.