Author: lilydarais

Yesterday I did not blog because Abe got offered an opportunity to move to Dallas. Every time the Qualtrics office in Dallas hires new sales reps, they send them to Abe for a personal training. Because of this, Abe knows everyone who works in Dallas and has great relationships with all of them. Even though Dallas has offered Abe the chance to move there whenever he wants, he never felt inclined to pursue the offer since he enjoys his present place so much.

However, on Friday Abe found out that they were more aggressively recruiting him. While he and the kids were at the Qualtrics party, I spent five hours researching housing in Dallas.

On Saturday, Abe had his conversation with the Dallas leadership, and he came away thinking perhaps he should seriously consider this offer. I went right back to Zillow and found the perfect house–ten houses away from the local church!!, fifteen minutes to Abe’s work, and 32 minutes from the Dallas temple. My mom, Abe, and I spent the whole evening talking and then I was too tired to blog.

Aside from trying to decide about Dallas, we spent the weekend setting up the house for Clarissa. I am happy to say, it is ALMOST done!!! And know I just have to get the house ready to sell. While everyone was at church, I (prayerfully) pushed myself to get the kids’ rooms in order, and now I can barely walk and am crippled–but the house is looking less like the trash can it resembled ten hours ago. I should have taken pictures. Maybe tomorrow.

My mom took this picture after Abe set up Ammon’s toddler bed. (We have since completely rearranged the room and set up his bed with sheets and an adorable quilt that had Ammon excitedly examining all of its fun designs.) Ammon and the girls were excited about this big step, although Abe and I are terrified to actually allow Ammon to try to sleep on his new bed. We can only imagine the destruction he will cause when left alone in his new room. Lydia came home from playing with the neighbors and reported that our 3 year old neighbor has a mesh cage around her toddler bed. I told Lydia there was no way we are going to do that to Ammon, but when I think through all that might happen when we eventually let him sleep in his bed, I wonder…

On Sunday Abe took this picture of the kids playing in a box leftover from Saturday’s house set-up.

Tonight was the Qualtrics summer party. My mom and I stayed home, but Abe and the kids had a wonderful time there.

Also, Abe took me to the doctor today and heard Clarissa’s heartbeat for the first time! That was exciting for him. The doctor also told me I need to be eating more!!!! I have lost weight (which I personally attribute to muscle turning to fat from all of the bedrest), but, whatever, the doctor instructed me to eat more. That was exciting for me.

On Wednesday morning my mom took the girls to dance. Lydia continues to adore her hip hop class, and Mary seems to still like ballet. Afterward, they played with the babysitter until nap time.

During Ammon’s nap, Mary persuaded my mom, who had a full schedule, to have another tea party with her. My mom agreed on the condition that the party be short. Mary promptly served her a million servings of tea and then lay down on her side of the table because she “needed a nap.” She has all sorts of tricks to extend her tea party time out.

Abe had a wonderful day at work and is incredibly busy right now. He is trying so hard to get his work done by this evening so we can rearrange the house for Clarissa. We are turning the office into Ammon’s room so that the nursery can be for Clarissa. We are also rearranging the girls’ room so that they can still have an arts and crafts space without an office. And we are setting up a sewing station in our bedroom so I can sew outside of the office. (Never mind that I sewed for the first time in years just last weekend. I feel like I “need” a sewing space just.in.case.)

We also have to tackle the crazy messes upstairs. I have felt zero motivation to clean the girls’ room and the office because I know we are going to address these rooms this weekend, but in the meantime…wow. They are out of control.

Wednesday morning I thought we had Mary’s kindergarten assessment and interview. Turns out it is next week, but we didn’t find that out until we were actually there. I am the worst at dates and times and feel like I am always getting things like this wrong, even with the help of Google Calendar. At the same time–oh, well! I am reading, at the personal advice of my friend, Ashley, Brené Brown’s book, The Gifts of Imperfection. Liem and Phuong picked it up at the library for me yesterday, and I am so grateful. Most of my books come and go without me picking them up because I am so immobile, and this is one I would have been sad to miss.

I love being reminded through this book that I don’t need to be perfect. It’s great news because, as I know this blog regularly reflects, I am pretty flawed. Sometimes this can really stress me out, but this book has helped me see that I have made a lot of progress in self acceptance recently. I attribute this to the excessive amount of rest and relaxation I’ve had on bed rest. Even though I clock in at well over 200 pounds, I feel more body confidence than I did when I was in college and weighed almost 100 pounds less. I look in the mirror and see positive things first for the first time in…my life? It’s kind of amazing. I also feel a lot more relaxed about my children. I have spent way too long thinking that they need to be perfect to justify my choice to stay at home. But they don’t need to be perfect, and I can’t make them perfect. They are enough just as they are, tantrums and all. And also, I love them.

Anyway, my mom drove us to Mary’s interview and enjoyed seeing Mary’s kindergarten school, Kids’ Village. Mary loved it too.

After we came home, the girls made cookie dough with Abby, the babysitter, until Ammon’s nap time at 1pm. The babysitters go home during nap time, and so the girls ran across the street and had a neighborhood water balloon fight with all of the kids in the neighborhood. I have a magical spot by my window; I can sit here and hear everything that goes on in the cul-de-sac–and beyond!! I can even clearly hear conversations half a block past the cul-de-sac. I kind of feel like a spy, but it was very enjoyable to hear the kids having fun.

Then the kids came back home. Lydia French knitted while Mary had a tea party with Nana.

When Abby returned, the kids spent the rest of the afternoon baking and decorating cookies. Abby did a great job cleaning the mess, but the kids were still decorating when she left, so the sprinkles and icing all over the floor were left for my mom and Abe. They are heroes and cleaned it all up.

Also, Abe gave Liem and Phuong the Qualtrics tour today, and they ended by playing basketball in the lobby.

On Tuesday I learned a lesson on how to help Mary when she has a tantrum.

It was 10am, and the babysitter had just arrived. I was settling into my seat by the window when I heard Mary start to scream at Ammon and the babysitter. Lately, whenever I hear her start to scream, I call her upstairs, listen to her, talk to her, give her options, and let her choose a behavioral “option” that will solve her problem. She usually responds well to this.

However, yesterday she did not like my options. I gave her the options to either play nicely with Ammon and promise to be nice to the babysitter or to play in her room by herself. She appeared to think that both of these options were horrible, and so she sat in my chair and screamed at me until 11 am. She screamed things like, “I hate you! You don’t love me! You want me to stay in here forever and be boring boring boring! You’re the meanest mom ever! I am going to stay here until Nana comes back! I want Nana! NANAAAAAAAA!!!!”

Because I have 6 weeks of bedrest behind me, I felt unusually patient, calm, and full of love for her. I sat on the ottoman knitting, and every time she took a breath I would tell her I love her, pat her legs, and remind her that all she had to do to leave the room was pick an option. And at 11am, one hour of screaming later, she did! I was beginning to think we were stuck forever.

An hour later Mary came back up to my room with a tray for a tea party she had prepared for us. After pouring me “tea,” she climbed onto my bed and said, “Mom, do you know why I told you I didn’t love you earlier? Because I was preparing this SURPRISE (and here she threw out her arms wide) for you!!”

I was so thrilled. I drank approximately nine refills of tea and ate a bun she had brought up on a mini plate. Now I know all I need going forward is TONS of rest, and I can handle Mary’s meltdowns!!

Also, Liem and Phuong hiked the Teton Crest Trail over the weekend, and they joined us for dinner and stayed with us Tuesday night. We had the most fun talking with them.

And at 9 pm, my mom came back from Michigan!!! We are all so happy to have her back. I have a picture of Lydia wearing the stuffed mustache Nana brought her, but it’s on Abe’s phone. I will post it later.

 

On Sunday I spent most of the day in bed. On Saturday night Mary climbed into bed with us around 1am, and I spent the next five and a half hours wide awake. I spent a lot of time pondering all of my blessings and felt so grateful for my life.

Finally, I went downstairs for some cereal, and my favorite kind was out. I went down to the basement food storage to get some replacement, and my jaw dropped open when I reached our storage. Before her trip, my mom worked for days organizing the basement food storage, and now it basically looks like we have two grocery stores downstairs. It’s incredible. I took the new cereal and came upstairs marveling at our blessings. God blesses us every day with food so that our family never goes hungry, and the store looked to me like an overabundance of heavenly–and maternal love.  Thanks, Mom, for that gift!

Abe survived Sacrament with all of the kids.  He fed them all of their meals, cooked us a curry and rice for dinner, cleaned everything up, gave me two massages, studied his scriptures and even meditated. He is my hero. I am so lucky.

This is a picture Abe took earlier this week that I forgot to post. I have loved all the time I have had recently to cuddle my kids. They are so snuggly.

Today Abe, the kids, and Abe’s dad and Suzanne all went to Lagoon, a theme park by Ogden. They had so much fun! Abe is lying on the bed right now talking about how much fun he has being a dad.

My mom also sent me this beautiful picture of the fun she is having in Michigan.

I had one goal for the day at home, and that was to sew a blanket I bought fabric for a couple months ago. After hours of relearning how to use my sewing machine, I finally did it! I was so proud of myself. If you look closely, there are a million mistakes, but I’m counting on Clarissa to not look too closely (for a while at least).

My mom sent me a lot of pictures of her Michigan vacation. Thank goodness, because I did not take any pictures and am too tired to blog about my day!

On Thursday evening, Abe took the kids up American Fork Canyon for a dinner picnic with his mom and Jay. They had a lot of fun!