Author: lilydarais

This morning Ammon woke up pretty content, so I let him play in his room while I got ready for the day. Abe changed his diaper and put Ammon’s basketball hoop in Ammon’s closet before he left for work.

By the time I got to Ammon, he had literally torn his closet door down trying to get to his hoop. He just barely missed smashing the window to smithereens, and when I found him, he was climbing the fallen, angled door like a slide. He really likes his hoop. (Abe took the other door off of his closet so this can not happen again.)

The girls played really well again today. They are on a roll! Also, Lydia loves drawing princesses. I remember drawing very similar kinds of princesses when I was younger–with the same form as Lydia draws them and everything. But one difference is that Mary insists Lydia put RED glasses on her princesses. Lydia has been so sweet to oblige.

Every morning for a week Lydia’s first words of the day have been, “How many more days until Clarissa gets here, not counting today? It’s taking sooooo long! I just want her to be here NOW!!!!” She continues to be very excited to meet her little sister. I know she knows how many more days are left because she asks both Abe and me this question multiple times a day. I think she just likes hearing that we are getting closer each day.

Also, I also finished Clarissa’s blanket today!! That means, according to my calculations, we are ONE HUNDRED PERCENT READY for Clarissa! Honestly, we have never been so ready for a child before. With Lydia we were physically ready but had no idea what a new baby would be like. With Ammon and Mary we were arrogant slackers and thought that we were ready but put off setting up their spaces until after they were born.  Because I have had almost two months to think of everything we need to do for Clarissa, we are so, so, SO ready.

I recently read a story Abe’s cousin posted about his miracle baby’s birth. It scared me so badly and I think about it every day, multiple times a day. His cousin’s wife basically sensed that there was something wrong because the baby had stopped moving. Since the baby had not moved before in the past, Abe’s cousin, Danny, didn’t think much of it but drove her to the hospital anyway. When they got there, they discovered the baby was literally dying and had minutes left to live. Within three minutes, they performed a c-section and saved his baby.

Danny wrote about how horrible the experience was, but how his testimony of God’s hand and miracles was strengthened. He was one red light away from having his baby die on the way to the hospital, and every single light he hit was green. When they got to the hospital, every doctor and nurse necessary was right there on hand to perform the surgery. Also, most babies who are dying because of a cord knot (as his baby was) don’t come out very well. His baby is one hundred percent normal on every test. These are some of the miracles he wrote about in his blog.

I am so glad his baby is okay! And every time Clarissa moves I say a silent, “Thank-you, God,” because I am very scared of cord knots. When I lived in Salt Lake, one of the ladies I visit taught was thirty-nine weeks pregnant and her baby died because of a cord knot. I was with her in the hospital as she gave birth to her stillborn baby girl, and the experience has stayed with me ever since. I don’t know if I have ever felt as sad as I felt when my friend delivered a perfectly beautiful but lifeless baby daughter. It was so, so awful.

Right now Clarissa is moving as I type. Thank you, God.

Anyway, I will take pictures of her blanket tomorrow when there is sunshine for lighting. Right now Abe is breaking it in by taking an evening (well, 10 pm) nap under it.

I am going to start another blanket just like this one tomorrow. I know of about five babies happening between now and the end of January that I would like to give a blanket to. Sadly, this blanket took me at least twenty hours, though maybe now I that have experience I could whittle the next one down to fifteen. I have no idea if I will ever finish another blanket like this, but I can dream! I absolutely ADORED the yarn for this blanket. Each skein was so soft, and the colors were rich and so, so fun to work with. I feel like I could make this blanket five more times and not get tired of it, but with a newborn on hand…I just don’t know. I do know that if they allow me to crochet in the hospital, I am going to crochet between contractions all day Friday and try to get a head start on this crazy goal.

On Tuesday I spent most of the day crocheting and listening to The Lemon Tree: An Arab, A Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East. It is a wonderful book.

I also made soup for dinner. I think I am actually starting to get better because a couple weeks ago I would not have been able to stand for that long.

Abe’s allergies are acting up, so he came home exhausted not only from his biggest work day this week, but also from his allergies. He still managed to conduct a fun FHE wherein he talked about the law of the harvest. Then he, my mom, and the kids went out and harvested our garden. I had no idea we had so many tomatoes! It was very exciting.

The kids played beautifully for most of the day. I think after the long summer, they are starting to figure out how to get along–just in time for school to start next week. 🙂

On Monday Lydia spent the whole morning listening to her hip-hop song from dance, Believe, by Imagine Dragons. She literally listened to it on repeat for hours straight, and when Ammon’s nap time came, she climbed into bed and prepared to listen to it for the afternoon. She and Mary quickly became distracted by playing, but this is how nap time started:

Also, Ammon is starting to learn all sorts of new words! On Monday he added “hoop” to his growing vocabulary. It’s an appropriate accompaniment to his most favorite word, “ball.”

In the evening Abe took the kids to Qualtrics for his team party. I think they had a great time, and he probably has pictures on his phone. I’ll put them on here when he’s home next and I think of it!

Lydia is so over-the-top excited for Clarissa to get here. This morning she shot into our room to check to see if Clarissa came early. I guess she got over her disappointment that Clarissa isn’t another boy like Ammon and is just happy she’s going get another baby in the family. Lydia loves babies. Today she kept telling me throughout the day that she wished Clarissa would come soon because she can’t wait to have another baby around. When she talks about the prospect of a new baby, she grins really wide and basically radiates joy. She is such a great big sister.

Mary is nonplussed by the idea of Clarissa. She seems relatively indifferent to the prospect of a new baby, although she is intrigued by Clarissa’s room and her baby toys.

Ammon has no idea he is about to be robbed of baby status. He can’t say his own name so he has started to referring to himself as “baby.” This unfortunate turn of events took place in the past couple weeks. Just as he finally learned to call himself “baby,” a smaller baby is about to show up. I hope he takes losing baby status better than Mary and Lydia did. Sometimes I think the reason they have so many emotional issues is because they never got over the trauma of losing baby status. Maybe I am bad at integrating new siblings. It’s probably my fault.

We were initially afraid to let Ammon sleep in his new room because we knew he’d end up doing this:

He did that yesterday. The girls thought it was hysterical. Now that he has that out of his system, he has been sleeping in his toddler bed like a champ!

We won’t actually put Clarissa in her room for a while, but I need a place to change and feed her at night, and right now that place is her room. Abe and I realized this yesterday and decided to train Ammon on his toddler bed ASAP.

Today I listened to conference talks and The God Who Weeps while crocheting and eating Chip cookies. Chip delivered some cookies Saturday night. I actually prefer the cookies the day after delivery when they’re a little firmer. (They deliver them warm right out of the oven, and as good as that sounds, they are always a little too soft and over-the-top buttery that way to me.) I am excited to be mobile again sometime so when I want to eat my favorite food group, chocolate chip cookies, I can actually just make them myself for a fraction of the price. In the interim, Chip cookies has been a fun, fattening discovery.

That reminds me. I gained three pounds last week. I was only supposed to gain half a pound, but it seems I took the doctor’s advice to eat more very seriously (hence the Chip cookie discovery)–and it worked a little too well. Eep.

Abe said that at church today he attended the best lesson he’s ever had on family history. He also took a long nap, which is awesome because he has been sleep deprived for months now. Since I’ve been immobile, he has been getting up with Ammon’s teething (Ammon has been teething now for over a year), and he gets up around 5am twice a week for basketball and temple attendance. He also works late–sometimes into the AM’s–and so sleep has been difficult for him to come by. I was so happy to see him finally get some rest.

After church the girls spent the whole day playing outside with their friends. Ammon took an epic nap, and my mom went visiting teaching after church. In the evening one of Abe’s coworkers, who I barely know, dropped off homemade cinnamon rolls because he and his wife heard that I have had a tough pregnancy. Isn’t that amazing? I couldn’t actually manage to eat one because I am stuffed with cookies, but I was so touched.

Also, I keep having birthing dreams. In the dreams, I am either giving birth or talking to medical personnel about the possibility of giving birth. I am actually looking forward to being induced because it sounds so tidy, but I won’t be complaining either if tonight my dreams finally come true.

 

On Saturday Abe spent the whole day working to set up the house. Clarissa is coming in less than a week, and we want to be ready. (Actually, we are way more ready than we have ever been for any kid except for Lydia. We started setting up–as in, assembling from scratch–Mary’s changing table and clothes after my water broke for her. Yikes! And Ammon’s room wasn’t ready for months until after he was born.)

Nevertheless, Abe worked so hard all day, and I am SO grateful. Ammon sat on the doll desk and was Abe’s sidekick while Abe worked.

The girls’ room was a little messy before yesterday because we were trying to cram their art space into their room because we turned the office into Ammon’s room. I was a little worried about how we were going to fit everything. Thank you, Pinterest, for your wonderful ideas. In the end, their room actually looks better than it did before the switch.

They used to have a bookshelf where this area is, but we moved that to Clarissa’s room. Clarissa, for whom we are rearranging all of these things, also has an updated, slightly more feminine nursery. We moved the yellow rug into Ammon’s new room, and we just happened to have a pink rug rolled up in the garage. It’s amazing what a change of rugs will do to a room!

I still have one more painting to find for her nursery. It’s somewhere hiding in the house.

I would love to see pictures of the spaces where my ancestors grew up. I know my grandma’s house so well in my mind and heart, and I wish I had access to my dad’s house and the spaces that surrounded my more distant ancestors too. Hopefully my posterity will think this is at least kind of interesting.

In the evening Abe took the kids to vacuum out the van and attend the Elder’s Quorum BBQ. Ammon apparently loved the trampoline but didn’t quite know how to use it. The girls had fun playing with all of the other kids there.

When they came home, everyone went straight to the bath. The kids all smelled so terrible! Now they smell like roses and daisies and everything pretty.

Abe and I finished the evening by watching the rest of Lion, which is absolutely incredible. It was my second time watching it. I watched it myself last Saturday (or maybe two Saturdays ago??–can’t remember!), and it took Abe and I a full week to finish it. We can only watch movies usually in small increments at a time. Life is so busy and tiring, one of us usually poops out after thirty minutes.

Also, another reason I haven’t been blogging is because my new yarn arrived! Thus far I have been knitting and crocheting with yarn Abe picked out. As much as I love Abe, I feel like I can safely say that we have different tastes in yarn. One of the reasons I felt motivated to learn to crochet so fast was because I felt highly motivated to get rid of all the yarn we had on hand. 🙂 And now that my yarn has come, I am starting Clarissa’s final baby blanket. I’ve calculated that it will take me at least twenty hours to finish, so every evening I have been choosing between blogging or madly crocheting. I love crocheting, so that’s been winning lately.

On Friday I finished knitting Mary’s pair of fingerless gloves. When I re-learned how to knit, my goal was simply to follow some sort of pattern and make something useful. I spent hours practicing knitting and purling before I felt confident enough to start a pattern, and it felt so good to finish the girls’ gloves. It also helps that they love them! Mary wore hers the entire day, even though it was over eighty degrees outside.

I had my OBGYN appointment in the afternoon. My mom drove me, but the doctor had emergencies and was over an hour late, so my mom had to run back, pick up Sophie and the kids from Qualtrics (where they were playing in the kid room), and drop Sophie home for a family event. Abe picked me up and drove me home. In the interim, I about died in the doctor’s office. I was half naked in an unventilated, un-airconditioned room, sitting on the uncomfortable examining bed for an hour. It was so horrible. But the doctor was really nice and assured me over and over that no matter what, they are for sure inducing me this coming Friday. I CAN NOT WAIT!!!

In the evening, Abe took the kids to Denny’s for dinner. Our friend, Nick, is a cook there and wanted to see Abe. Normally I try to have something at least planned for dinner, but after the doctor’s office I basically sat on my chair for the rest of the afternoon and ignored responsibility. Guess it worked out because they all had a great time.

 

On Thursday the girls played PERFECTLY together all day. I couldn’t even believe it. They didn’t even want to go outside to play with friends because they were having such a great time together. It was a dreamy, wonderful day.

This video of Lydia affirming Mary blew me away. I was so proud of both girls.

Also, Abe let Mary grill the pineapple tonight. She did a great job!

On Wednesday Mary had her kindergarten interview. It went really well, and she is SO excited. It occurred to me that she might not actually be emotionally ready, but I guess I will just see how it goes. If she throws fits in school, then I can always take her out.

Since I was already out and about, my mom dropped me off at the nail salon for a pedicure. I chose a color that made me think of what I feel like Clarissa’s personality might be like. I actually don’t really know what she’ll be like, but I imagine that she might like a subdued, slightly shimmery pinkish purple. Normally I hate purple, but I don’t know–it appealed in this one circumstance.

On Tuesday we had a pretty normal day. The air conditioning went out (we always forget to change our filters, so this happens with some regularity), and so I sat in my chair/lay on my bed sweating while the babysitter took care of the kids.

If we move to Texas, Abe and I both have things we will miss. He will miss being close to his family, and that has been the primary emotional counterweight for him. I’m sure the kids will miss their wonderful grandparents too.

If we move to Dallas, I will miss the amazing babysitters we have. Right now we rotate through eight exceptional young women, each of whom is more impressive than the next. I feel like I’m watching The Twelve Dancing Princesses make the rounds–each young woman is so beautiful, vibrant, creative, fun, and good with the kids. Ammon cries when Abe comes home and takes him away from the babysitter o’ the day, and the girls wait breathlessly by the door for these girls’ arrivals. Today Ammon heard that it was almost time for the babysitter to come and scrambled to the window shouting, “AMMA! AMMA!” (Emma! Emma!”).

Also, I remember what it was like before we discovered babysitters. I was going totally crazy, felt really isolated (it didn’t help that for part of that time period I didn’t have access to a car), and honestly looked forward to late night trips to the grocery store just so I could have some peace of mind. Whenever I wonder why I enrolled in cooking school, I make myself remember how trapped I felt at home without any time to myself, and then the lightbulb goes off. If I were to go back in time, I would sit down with my former self and say, “Self, you don’t need cooking school. You just need to invest in regular babysitters. In the end, that will be a lot cheaper than cooking school AND you will get what you really want: Time alone!”

Good babysitters have changed my life. Abe and I can go on dates whenever we want! I can have time alone if I need it! I can be on bedrest. That would not be possible without these incredible young women, all of whom are in walking distance and don’t need to be picked up or driven back to their houses. They also are extremely affordable, considering the supply/demand ratio of young women to families that actually use babysitters. (In Utah, most young families just rely on their nearby relatives, but since my mom lives with us and already helps out a TON with the kids, we try never to leave her alone with the kids when we go out, the only exception being if the kids are already in bed and all they need is an adult physically in the house while they sleep.)

Anyway, I was feeling fine about Texas and felt like I could leave Utah without sentiment weighing me down (especially knowing we will be back in two-three years), but then I considered the babysitter situation and literally almost cried. I am sure there are great young women in Texas, but I highly doubt I will find EIGHT exceptional young women within walking distance of my house–plus more that I have never had to call because one of the eight has always been available. Having so many babysitters means there is almost never a problem lining up an outing (except when there is a youth church event on a weekday evening, and then, if it’s a gender-specific event, I also have had great babysitting experiences with several of the amazing young men in the ward).

So, in sum, I am now in the veto-the-Texas-move camp, although I will support a move if Abe negotiates some sort of screaming deal. Normally, I adore moving and fresh starts–and Texas sounds so fun! But having considered the babysitter situation and what my life could be like when this disappears, I would infinitely prefer just to stay in Utah for now. I love staying at home with my kids, but I am now spoiled by being able to leave my kids whenever I need a break, and I can’t imagine how I would function without that in my life. No thanks.

(And I forgot to take pictures yesterday, hence this picture-free ode instead of the usual cataloguing of the day.)

So Abe and I have a really easy, high-affirmation, low-conflict relationship 99% of the time. This is mostly due to Abe’s incredible ability to be patient, kind, and level-headed when I am grumpy, hormonal, and irritable, but honestly, most of the time it is just so easy to love and affirm Abe. He is the easiest person to get along with. This is mushy (sorry, posterity), but the honest truth: Usually just the thought of Abe makes my heart melt. It is pretty hard to get mad at him, and it is basically impossible to stay mad at him.

However, I am really edgy trying to get ready for Clarissa and trying to figure out if we are moving to Dallas. I have basically broken my body and am in the worst pain yet from getting the rooms ready, but I still depend on Abe to make the trips carrying heavy stuff out of the house and to various destinations in the house. We are getting our house ready to show to a friend-of-a-friend this week who wants to move into our neighborhood, and we are trying to figure out what to list our house for. Plus, Abe’s job continues to be crazy demanding and full of unknowns. There’s a lot going on.

Anyway, last night our relationship was not in the 99% easy-breezy-happy-happy-happy zone. It was in the I-am-REALLY-frustrated-right-now-and-you-make-an-easy-target zone. (At least for me.) Abe’s zone was this: I-am-REALLY-tired-and-doing-my-best-and-you-are-being-extremely-unreasonable zone.

So we spent the the last couple hours of the evening in our zones. Abe, the reasonable one, tried to break through by stopping me in the kitchen and exclaiming, “This is nuts! We are crazy about each other!! Can we just sit and talk about this and stop being upset now??” I am so lucky, right??? But I was also soooooo mad that I just said, “Nope, we don’t have time.” ….???????

Yesterday afternoon I read a wonderful church talk about overcoming the world, and how the battles involved are personal. I actually thought about that talk while trying to calm down and be a better person last night, but sometimes it feels so much easier just to be angry and upset, even if the feelings make no logical sense.

Anyway, we made up this morning and are back to our normal zones, thank goodness. My heart melts at the thought of my wonderful husband, and all is right with the world.

Also, Ammon’s new room looks like this:

I am pretty pleased. I remember what it meant to me growing up to be in beautiful, clean, organized, aesthetically interesting spaces. It actually meant a lot. In Ammon’s baby blessing, he was blessed to have an eye for beauty. His middle name is Alexander (like Abe’s), and Alexander is the name of Abe’s wonderful grandfather who was a BYU professor of art. He was a very charismatic artist and was offered the chance to become dean of his department but turned it down because he did not like politics and also prized his time with his family.

Anyway, the point is, he was a great artist, and we hope Ammon takes after him. Ammon delighted me by immediately examining his quilt and pointing excitedly at all of the embroidered details and saying, “WOOK! DISS!!” (“Look! This!!”)

That room cost me a LOT of physical pain, and I am so thrilled Ammon loves it.

I am in the process of doing the same to Clarissa’s room, and I worked on the girls’ room yesterday and this morning. I wish I knew if we were moving or not because then I could finish their craft corner. As it is, it’s a little cluttered right now, so I just took a picture of their beds. Ever since bed rest, I gave up nighttime potty training because I can not physically change Mary’s sheets 4-5 times a week. So we switched out their covers to the original covers I chose two years ago (that are completely incompatible with potty training).

Mary had forgotten these covers and was as excited about them as Ammon was about his. She kept jumping up and down and exclaiming, “This is AMAZING!!!” after Abe put them on her bed.