This morning we clipped the girls’ nails. Mary LOVES this activity. Her enjoyment convinced Lydia to let us do the same to her.Lydia didn’t enjoy it to quite the same level.
After that, we loaded the girls in the car and hit:
Target, Walmart, Old Navy, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Kid to Kid, Smith’s and Robinson Tree Farms:
We went here last year for the first time. Abe and I love walking through this big tree lot and pretending we’re in a forest.We all played pretend together.Mary found a tree she liked.…And so did Lydia.
Lydia went around hugging various trees and becoming passionately attached to the most skiwompus trees in the lot. Abe would say stuff like, “Lydia, do you like this healthy, even looking tree or this gaunt, sickly one?” and she would reply, “The gaunt, sick-wee one!”
Lydia found a soap box on which to stand and declaim her love of gaunt trees.Mary started getting cold, so Abe bundled her in his coat.Lydia had a blast taking out every single box in our Christmas bins. Don’t let her sober camera face fool you.See?Mary was DYING to help hang stuff on the tree, so we finally let her hang some candy canes.We almost got Balu to come over, but he had a school meeting to go to. We could have used him tonight; corralling Mary around the tree was impossible! She just wanted to help so badly.Lydia and I hung ornaments while Abe tried to keep Mary from undoing our work.Here are Martha Stewart’s felt ornaments on the tree. I went to so many stores today looking for the screw punch she says you need to thread these ornaments, but after going a million places with no luck, it occurred to me that I could just sew some embroidery floss onto the ornaments. After our afternoon nap, I spent an hour threading all the ornaments–and it worked! No $15 screw punch necessary.The final product.The girls napped until after 6pm, and I didn’t finish threading the ornaments until 6pm. I considered just doing canned soup for dinner, but since today was our official entry into the Christmas season, I decided to make some polenta cakes and kale. The colors were right, and they came together pretty quickly.On the lower right you will notice Abe’s Christmas tree from college. One Christmas he was feeling sad and not festive; he went to class and stumbled on a craft fair in the entry of his building. He bought this green retractable extendable tree. It cheered him up right away and made him feel like God had put that little tree in his path to help him be more merry.
And now to my homework. I missed another deadline for my menu class, so now I have to go make up that late work. The 74.3% in my online gradebook is seriously stressing me out. Maybe that’s why, even after all the decorating, I still don’t feel very festive this year. Hopefully getting this assignment done will help fix that.
I felt so bad about neglecting Lydia for that long, so after a couple hours I stopped and we did this:
We made gingerbread cookies together.Lydia liked the whole process very much.When Mary woke up from her nap, she refused to eat anything except our gingerbread cookies. I don’t know how she did it because they are hard, but she made a couple disappear with only her 3 teeth.Some of the finished products.
Lydia spent my practice time watching Sesame Street DVD’s and entertaining herself.
Ever since I taught Lydia how to load books on cd in the cd player, we have been listening to Marian Anderson sing. We have a ton of other books on tape checked out, but this is Lydia’s (and our) favorite.She keeps telling me that I need to go buy her some pedals for her bike. In fact, that is exactly what she is saying to me in this picture.Mary was sleepy today. We put her down for her first nap shortly after Abe (!) took this shot. She proceeded to sleep for the next four hours. That’s more like the Mary I know!
We had a field trip to Muir Farms (really a food distribution center) today, and Abe took the girls to the ward Christmas party during my field trip. Lydia asked Santa to please bring her cat back to her, and Mary spent the party toddling everywhere.
My field trip was done a little early, so I spent the rest of the evening practicing.
I really need to put the brakes on the piano, but it feels so wonderful to play. Tomorrow is Saturday, though, so I hope to realign my priorities and spend more time with my family starting tomorrow.
Also, Abe got REALLY exciting news today. I hate veiled communication, but such is necessary until Monday. Suffice it to say, we have felt God’s compassionate intervention in some of Abe’s challenges at work, and Abe’s prayers were answered today.
This morning I visit taught my friend, Marilyn. She’s had six kids (all of whom are grown up now), and I always leave her feeling like she’s visit taught me instead of visa versa. For instance, today she told me this inspiring story: When her first son was two years old, he spilled a pitcher of lemonade all over a dinner she had spent the whole day preparing (they had company that night). In total shock, she stared at the mess and then with tears in her eyes said, “Guess who still loves you? Can you help Mommy clean this up?”
Wow! I felt so motivated to be kinder to my two year old after that. Marilyn told me she wished she had reacted that way more often when her kids were little, and I left feeling inspired to be a better mom. I was more inclined to say yes when Lydia begged to go outside and play in the snow today because of my morning visit. I forgot to take pictures, but we played chase again. It was sunny and not too cold, and actually I had a lot of fun.
I also played with Mary on the stairs for the better part of an hour, and that activity was made especially more fun because there were lots of cuddles involved. After Mary got tired on the stairs, I put her down for a nap (and put Lydia in her room for quiet time) and read and felted for the next couple of hours.
I also got a good deal of piano in during Mary’s first nap–she took two naps again today!!!–, and since I also did Bikram this evening, I am feeling pretty great about life. My only wish is that school tomorrow did not fall smack dab during the ward Christmas party.
I didn’t take any pictures today, but while Abe watched the girls during my yoga session, he took some.
Looks like they got a bubble bath today.Lydia made Abe talk in Minnie Mouse and Donald Duck voices for two hours straight. Whenever he’d stop, she’d burst into tears.Someone got a bubble beard…
Here’s what happened today: Treadmill. Preschool. Food prep. Reading. A little piano. A little felting. Reading to my kids. A little cleaning. Class.
It’s hard to come up with much to say about today. I had a lot less panic and anxiety today–go, treadmill, go! Also, I cuddled my babies a lot. They were exceptionally lovable today.
Here are the pictures:
I have a million pictures like this from today.…But I’m only going to post two.Okay, okay. Three.Also, Lydia got a postcard album from her cat. She was beside herself with joy.Thanks, Beth, for doing that for Lydia! It was the sweetest gift ever. We love you so much!
I am a newcomer to panic and anxiety, but Abe is an old pro in those departments. He tells me that exercise is a great way to control your thoughts, so this morning I eased back into my treadmill routine. Heavy on the “ease.” But I did notice improvement! I didn’t feel quite so panicky.
Mainly I bounced between the piano and my felting station all day. I am making our ornaments this year, and yesterday my final package arrived in the mail. So today I set up shop and started felting away. Ever since Martha Stewart featured a little video on felting these ornaments last Christmas, I have been daydreaming about what it must feel like to do the same.
I wish I could say I enjoy felting as much as I anticipated enjoying it, but when you’ve anticipated something for a whole year, meeting those sky-high expectations becomes rather difficult. But I do enjoy making these ornaments, and I am very excited to have a child-friendly tree.
Some cute things that happened with the girls today: Lydia has been having trouble getting her hair washed recently. She has never enjoyed the process, but we do it every day and she gets through it. Lately, though, she has started screaming and trying to climb out of the tub when we try to touch her hair. Today was a loud and painful ordeal for her, and at the end, I gave her a big hug. Mary was watching and toddled over to give Lydia a big hug too. It was kind of adorable.
Here are today’s pictures:
It snowed today! Lydia begged me to go outside with her, and since Mary was napping, I agreed.I spent the first two minutes taking pictures of her, and then I put my camera inside so we could play chase in the snow. Building snowmen is Abe’s specialty, but it’s too cold of an activity for me. Chase, though, I can do…Here are some of the ornaments I traced, cut out, and felted. Aren’t they so fun?Close up of the detail. Martha Stewart pairs these ornaments with pine cones and bristle ornaments. Currently, I do not collect anything that I can think of, but my new goal is to start collecting bristle woodland ornaments.
I woke up this morning with panic in my chest. When I signed up for cooking school, I had no idea what the work load would be. Turns out, it’s a lot more work than I ever imagined — even though I had sufficient warning (that, Julia, is a reference to my email exchange with Jamie. Thank you SO much for that hook-up!). Anyway, I woke up battling racing thoughts and panic, and those didn’t get any better as the day wore on.
After dropping my mom off at the airport at noon, I came home, read to the girls, and attempted to put them down for quiet time and nap time. Mary is resisting her afternoon nap these days, so this attempt was not entirely successful. Finally, I just let her toddle around while I worked on my homework…from 3pm to 10:20pm, with only brief intermissions.
Can you believe that? And I’m not even doing any lab classes this semester! And I’m submitting sub-par work! And half of my assignments aren’t getting turned in on time! It is nuts.
I don’t even know why I’ve self-imposed all of this pressure and activity in my life. When I took time today to read and play with my kids, I wistfully remembered just a month ago when I didn’t ever have anything competing with that time.
BUT I also remember (since it was only a month ago) feeling like I was disappearing into motherhood…and I didn’t like it. I mean, I LOVE my children, but I just didn’t like the lack of self actualization on my own terms. I grew up thinking that I could never get enough of domesticity, but it turns out that, after cleaning my kitchen floor approximately two thousand times, I can.
In one Relief Society meeting over a decade ago, one of my friends gave a great lesson on balance. She said that competitive swimmers don’t balance by gliding on the top of the water; rather, they pivot completely from side to side, and thereby achieve perfect balance. I took that analogy to heart, but I have to say, I feel like I am completely pivoted right now, and it doesn’t feel very balanced! I’m constantly chasing down time to self actualize, but in the meantime I feel like a slacker in the mom department, a slob in the homemaking department, and short-tempered in the wife department. When I practice or do homework or drive to my evening classes, at the back of my mind is this constant terror that these choices mean I’m a selfish narcissist. But also at the back is this faint hope that this pursuit will eventually give me balance. I’ll feel really betrayed if I ever discover that the best swimmers just glide evenly on top.
Because I suspect I am a narcissist, I spend most of my blogging time chronicling my own thoughts and feelings, and don’t do as great of a job capturing what’s going on in my family. Which is the whole point of this blog. I haven’t even written about how Lydia got confused when Abe tried to teach her the concept of privacy the other day, and that a was such a cute bungle. He asked her if she wanted her privacy on the potty, and she eagerly said she did. A couple minutes later, she sat down at her table wailing because no one had given her her privacy, and minutes later she was leading Nana around the house by the finger searching for her “pwivacy.” She thought it was a type of candy bar reward for going potty, and she was sorely disappointed when those expectations went unmet.
In my crazy attempts to carve time for self-actualization out of the day, I have discovered books on tape for children. I don’t know how they evaded me before, but wow, are they awesome. Today I finally taught Lydia how to load, unload, control the buttons and follow along in the book; that liberated me for hours. Well, some books are more ensnaring than liberating…for instance, today I stayed long enough to listen to a book on Marian Anderson, the African American opera singer from the 1940’s and 50’s. Some of her songs made my panicky, stressed heart want to crack in two. Hands down my favorite children’s book I’ve listened to on tape (and, since I just discovered this genre, consider me an expert).
Here are some pics we took during FHE. Kudos to Abe for coming up with the whole activity, because I was ready to skip it and work on my homework instead…
Abe wanted to act out the story of Jericho’s walls, but Lydia wanted to dress up in last year’s monkey costume. Then we put Mary in Lydia’s old cow costume, and Noah’s ark it was.
Abe was Noah. Here we are singing, “The animals go in two by two, hurrah, hurrah.” Lydia is marching in place to the lyrics.I was Noah’s wife/the narrator. (I read the story from Jan Brett’s fabulously illustrated version.) My neck is scratched up because that is Mary’s favorite new hobby whenever I hold her.From earlier in the day, before I dropped my mom off at the airport.We all miss Nana.
Today was Clark and Swathi’s last day in Utah. I am so sad they are gone, especially since while they were here we had in-house babysitters all the time. Abe and I both took two hour naps today and trusted that Lydia was in the greatest possible hands while we were zonked out.
And tomorrow my mom leaves, so by tomorrow night I will feel completely bereft. We will even see less of Balu than we have over the past weekend, simply because he will be gearing up for finals. I guess I should not mourn the future and instead focus on how great this past weekend with my family has been. Today I didn’t even have to cook since Balu and Swathi cooked some amazing Indian food–and Swathi even baked a pecan pie for us all. It was delicious.
Aside from napping all day and nursing a crazy headache, I had a wonderful visit with my visiting teacher, Erica Bowen. It’s amazing how uplifted a good visit can make me feel, and her insights and experiences buoyed my faith and happiness quite a bit.
I also loved just chatting with my family after we put the girls to bed. It was so fun to do nothing but sit around and talk for two hours. I love my family.
Since my headache is not getting any better and I still have a lot to clean, let me just finish and post the pictures of the day.
This is Abe feeding Lydia and Mary. This system looks strange but is surprisingly functional.Swathi’s rice. I don’t have a picture of Balu’s awesome chicken, but it was beautiful!Swathi’s pie. Yum.Lydia eating dinner #1.Our attempt to capture a gorgeous sunset.Swathi and Balu in the kitchen.Balu with Clark and Swathi’s Black Friday purchase (the iPad air).Tom, Suzanne, and Jere stopped by after dinner, just in time to take our picture,Clark and Swathi with their nieces.Mary pulled Lydia’s hair — maybe to try to get her to look at the camera??
Abe and I both felt like we had been run over by trucks for most of the day, so today was more about muddling through on low energy and aching muscles, and less about getting stuff done. We did manage to make it to the temple, and Swathi, Clark, Mom and I took Lydia to the library (although she fell asleep and slept through that entire outing).
We came home, ate pizza, and got the girls ready for bed. Swathi, Clark and Balu invited us to go to the movies with them, but Abe and I were so tired that we opted to be boring and stay at home instead. After the girls went down, I lay in bed reading The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, which I checked out from the library’s “Lucky Day” collection. That made my day feel appropriately lucky; I want to cook almost everything in the book, and I love all of Deb’s essays and pictures.
During the girls’ naps and quiet time, I made another dent in The Table Comes First. Adam Gopnik’s essays on the intersection of food and culture are gorgeously crafted, but I can’t read them for more than twenty minutes at a time before I fall asleep. I really don’t think that’s a reflection on his writing at all; more likely, my attention span is shortening and my ability to focus is waning. I haven’t finished a book in ages, although I have started plenty.
Here are the pictures from today:
Mary playing while the rest of us lay on the couch in a stupor.Ten minutes earlier, Abe was in this exact same position with his pj’s on when I informed him that we had a houseful of babysitters and had no excuse not to attend the temple today. He agreed, showered, changed, and resumed his former position until it was time to go.Mary played the piano this morning.Aunt Swathi affirmed her talent.We were delighted to come home from the library to find Mary eating in her Bumbo. She was an uncharacteristically great eater today.
When Lydia woke up bright and early this morning, I was so tired I honestly can not recall what happened after. I think I fed her breakfast. I know I blogged and practiced the piano…oh, and I might have taken a nap.
Then we bundled up and drove to Little Cottonwood Canyon to hike Donut Falls. We hiked along without incident until we came to a slippery, rocky ledge. We had to slide down it (Clark and Abe did this with babies strapped on) and try hard not to slide into the creek not far from the bottom of the ledge. It was a little scary, but what really gave us pause was our first view of the falls: It was an almost vertical climb on slippery rocks and snow-covered ice. What with the two babies and the fading sun, we decided to turn around. At the end, we experienced a couple hours in some beautiful nature, and we have fresh resolve to hike that trail again in the summer.
Donut Falls trail
After our hike, we drove home, fed the girls, re-bundled, and headed over to Temple Square. We ate dinner at The Garden Restaurant (on the roof of the Joseph Smith building), and then we walked around to see the Christmas lights on Temple Square.
It was a great day. My mom took a bunch of pictures this morning, so here they are:
Mondrian meets real life.During Abe’s exercise session, he bench presses his daughters.
They have fun.
Mary is happy.And then they all exercise together.Nana and MaryTired pile. Abe, Mary, and I took naps shortly after this shot was taken.
After dinner yesterday I was so tired and full that I skipped blogging and went to bed. But Grandma, Mom tells me you don’t read this until later in the day, so there’s still time!
Basically, I cooked all day and visited with Swathi and Mom in the kitchen. After reading Preethi’s Thanksgiving menu, I realized a) that her stuffed pumpkin recipe looked to die for and b) that I actually had all the ingredients on hand. Since we weren’t planning on eating dinner until 7pm, I made those pumpkins for lunch.
Good thing I did, because the only stressful moment of the day happened when Abe told me at 1pm that he’d told his family days ago that I would cook Thanksgiving dinner for his aunt (since she can’t leave the house). The food wasn’t going to be ready until after most people expect to eat Thanksgiving, and to be honest, I am not great at gauging portions, so I did not know if I’d made enough food.
Thankfully, I had made an extra pumpkin, and my mom kindly volunteered to purchase the dinners from Whole Foods, so crisis was ultimately averted. Even though we ate these pumpkins for lunch, they were, hands down, my favorite food of the day. We will be making those more often.
Aside from the panic that ensued at 1pm, the rest of the day did not feel hectic or crazy at all. I just stood in the kitchen and made one dish at a time with Swathi and my mom until at 7pm we had turned out: these rolls, mashed potatoes, cauliflower gratin, sweet potato casserole (next year I’d double the sweet potatoes, though), cranberry sauce, Alton Brown’s brined turkey, gravy, apple slab pie, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, three kinds of ice cream and whipped cream. Um, I like dessert. I had some brussel sprouts I meant to cook, but I ran out of time and space in the oven. Oh, well. Maybe I’ll cook those today.
At noon, while the pumpkins were cooking and before I found out I was in charge of an entire other meal, I even got some piano in. It was a great day. And now I’ll go eat some pumpkin pie for breakfast. (It’s my own personal tradition on the morning after Thanksgiving. Somehow, I still have room.)
Happy Thanksgiving!
The stuffed pumpkinHere it is openAbe wrestling our 18 lb Turkey. We got it from McDowell Farms.We used my Great-Grandma Cullen’s china.From left: Abe, Mary, Jay, Karin, Balu, and Lydia.And Jere!
Clark carved for us. Swathi smiling and looking beautiful next to him.He did a great job.Post dinner conversation. Everyone was full of food…At which point, I passed out. That is why I am blogging now instead of last night.
