Author: lilydarais

On Monday I had what we’ll call it the worst day in a while. I think I hadn’t quite processed all of the recent stress and on Monday I just kind of blew.

Instead of going into the ugly details of what that looked like and so memorialize my maternal deficits for the duration this blog stays up and running, I will just say that by 4:30pm I had put myself in time out in the basement with all of the alcohol we have in the house (not much, and not great. Utah is the worst for buying liquor and because I don’t drink regularly I never feel like I want to prioritize it enough to drive all the way across town for anything good).

Thank goodness for friends and family. While I was sipping away Swathi called and was so wonderful to talk to, and then Clark called and was incredibly helpful too. Oh, and in the moment of my actual mid-day meltdown Chelsea called and suggested I put Lydia in physical school again, which was brilliant and which I promptly did.

And then when I was alone feeling so terrible, all of my Thrive friends jumped on Marco Polo and gave me the best polos ever. They shared wonderfully specific examples of times when they did similar things, felt similarly, and just made me feel not so crazy, deficient and alone. And, of course, I happen to be married to my favorite conversationalist ever, so after the kids were in bed Abe talked to me for a long, long time. By the time we were done talking I felt like I could maybe make it one more day.

Today was a big day. Lily and I were getting tired from everything, and especially Lily who had been helping her mom during the night. Georgia has been up and down, but to this point there was no major episode like what sent her to the hospital.

Lily spent a ton of time today with her mom working on paperwork for her admittance into Legacy Village. She also took her mom to get the Carona Virus test. The whole process was a complete joke. The “Test Utah” organization will only test people under super specific circumstances and “An Elderly woman with intensive medical needs cannot move into her care center without this test” apparently isn’t enough. So Lily had to lie and say she had certain Covid symptoms (but not other because then they would send Georgia to the hospital and not test her there). Fortunately Lily was coached up by the lady at Test Utah about what to input in their system so Georgia could get tested. Lily half-jokingly said thank goodness she was the one doing that and not me because I would have a panic attack. I say half jokingly, because she’s quite right. I get very stressed bending the truth even a little, even if it is the obviously right thing to do.

In the afternoon, I bought new bike shoes for my road bike, and I also bought a new shower chair and a beautiful new recliner for Georgia. The recliner is made for elderly people with medical needs and it has a remote to control it. I felt happy hoping Georgia would like it. On the way home, I got pizza and ice cream for the family. Through all of the this, Lily and I have neglected the kids quite a bit, but at least they are eating happily :). Also, I did manage to play GoFish with them earlier in the day. They were were excited about it because Suzanne had recently taught them how to play.

In the evening, the kids made a huge mountain out of pillows and blankets and played with stuffed animals on their “mountain”. I love those kids! They have been so sweet, self-sufficient and fun during this difficult time.

Today, we had had lots and lots of processing and dialogue between Georgia, Lily, me, Clark and Swathi. We talked a lot about what to do for Georgia. We discussed care center options, home-care options, building out the new room for Georgia etc etc. Georgia seemed to prefer the idea of a care center because of the peace, order, care and simplicity of that solution, but Lily, Clark and I had a lot of conversation as we explored our own feelings on what was best. At the end of the night, Lily felt very strongly that we should keep Georgia here, close to family and home. Clark definitely preferred the idea of her being at home. I was back and forth. All of us wanted Georgia to make her own decision at the end of the day. One complication with the care at home strategy is that the noise is such a problem for her and she would need to endure a construction project at home for her new room to be built out.

On Saturday Abe and I slept in, got the kids ready, did yoga together, fed everyone brunch, cleaned up, and made sure the girls had their music practice done before hopping in the car for a day trip to Cedar Breaks National Monument. Below is a picture, and here is a video of the kids in the car before leaving. Clarissa and Ammon have been obsessed with saying BooBoo Bottom and Underpants lately. BooBoo Bottom comes from The Book with No Pictures by B.J. Novack. I’m not sure where underpants came from….

I have basically been an emotional wreck all week. On the three hour drive there I felt despair about the environment, our nation’s political situation, anti-science mindsets, anti-historical-reality mindsets, and pervasive racism everywhere. And during moments when the kids were all making–albeit mostly cheerful–noise at the same time in the small space of one moving vehicle, I began to wonder why such chaotic, messy life embedded in an irredeemably unjust world is worth living.

I actively wondered that for about twenty minutes before Abe articulately explained why our particular life is amazing and how, even though the world might be toxic, we don’t need to focus on that. Lydia timed our one and a half hour conversation, and by the end I was feeling a little more optimistic about life.

And then we arrived in Cedar Breaks National Monument, and wow did it surprise us all! We were not expecting how beautiful it was. Honestly I hadn’t even so much as googled on photo of Cedar Breaks, and while we were driving in the rain almost vertically up the slippery mountain road, I was feeling certain that nothing could be worth the drive. But when we got there, we saw this:

Yes, it was worth it. If the view isn’t enough, the smell was over the top. I have not smelled air that fragrant with pine–perhaps in my whole life?? Right after the rain everything was just giving off the most incredible scents, and our hike was a series of marvelous olfactory delights.

In fact I am wondering if we should go back next weekend because on our hike I made us all turn around at the halfway mark because I was scared the hike would turn into something much longer than we had time for. When we finally reached a map (back at the parking lot) I realized that if we had just kept going, we would have descended into a gorgeous loop. We’ll just have to go back I guess.

On Friday I mostly let the kids do whatever they wanted. Lydia wanted to do my hair, and after about two hours she had worked this wonder:

And then at bedtime I went to play with Clarissa until Abe came in to put her down. He then took this picture, which happens to catch the other braids Lydia did!

The kids also made pizza:

I don’t remember if anything significant happened on Thursday. I think we just did our routines, and Abe got this picture:

On Wednesday I let Ammon and Clarissa help make a ricotta, plum and strawberry galette. We got our only picture of the day while they were spreading the cheese:

On Tuesday Mary and Ammon played together for hours building and playing pretend. Here is a video and below is a picture capturing their play. The video includes Ammon saying “alsoly” which is one of my favorite words that I hear him use:

This morning I biked almost an hour, roasted some sweet potatoes, did preschool with Ammon, helped Mary practice the piano, roasted onions, eggplant, and peppers, made veggie enchiladas, and visited with Andrea when she came to get her phone. It was a nice visit after yesterday’s gut wrenching conversation!

She offered to do art with the girls and me once a month, which is incredible because she used to teach art at BYU and is a professional artist. Since Mary does art every day for hours upon hours (she probably averages three or four hours a day just coloring and drawing!)–this is a great opportunity for Mary especially. Andrea took a great interest in her art yesterday and I was so touched that today she offered to help guide Mary’s artistic progress.

Mary said something adorable during the dinner conversation on Sunday. When Andrea asked her about her process, Mary responded that she has to think about her art before she creates it because “otherwise it will be a big flop.” We all about died laughing. Mary is so, so over the top insanely cute!!

Today Ammon and I did preschool activities and books for the letter “f.” We watered flowers, blew out a candle (fire!) by making the “f” sound, and read books.

Ammon also spent most of the day just playing with his magna tiles, laying out his Zingo cards around the house to make a path for his toy witches, and playing with his toy dragons and dinosaurs. He and Clarissa also spent a lot of time together.

Lydia spent the entire day reading Life of Pi start to finish. I put it on her summer reading shelf and totally forgot about the gruesome ending until she was already into it and addicted. Hopefully she doesn’t get nightmares.

Abe had a great day at work even though he is so tired. We are going to try to get to bed early tonight and fix that situation. But for being so tired, he still got out of bed early and went running before work, helped Mary do her eye exercises, and right now he’s cleaning the kitchen (the fourth time it’s been cleaned today!!).

My mom had a bad spell today but was great for most of the day. She has been doing much better ever since Sunday when she requested a blessing from the bishop. We’re all so glad she’s been feeling overall so much better.

I went grocery shopping today and then came home to put it all away, roast veggies, pickle onions, make a vegetable soup, and assemble some bagel sandwiches for dinner. Abe’s Aunt Andrea came over for dinner because he was helping her with her new phone. It ended up taking him five hours to set up her phone and even then there were still more pictures to download, but by then we had to call it a night.

We had a really pleasant time and all of the kids adore Andrea. But after they went to bed Andrea announced that she really wanted to discuss something important with us. At that point, she sat down and informed us that Jesus was coming again by roughly 2060 and that it was so important for us to prepare ourselves.

That did not go over too well with me.

By the end of the night I think we were all in a state of mild shock from the conversation. Abe ended with a wonderful scripture from Paul on how everything will vanish except for love. And at the end of the day, that is how I feel. Nothing matters, really, except for love. I am so grateful for my wise, kind, incredible husband, my good, kind, intelligent mother, my darling children, and the best life I could ever imagine for myself. Every day I wake up and want to pinch myself that this is really my life. It’s an existence filled to the brim with family, with love, with abundance, with things that make me happy every day.

And at the end of the day, I’m grateful for Abe’s Aunt Andrea too. The world is full of every type of person, and she is a colorful, beautiful, interesting, talented person. Even though I deeply disagree with her on everything related to the Church, I think her faith gives her a lot of buoyancy, cheer, and zest for life, and those things help her make the world a better place.

On Saturday Abe and I were so, so tired. We ended up cleaning the basement. I should have taken pictures because it is looking so good! We set up another table so I can use the sewing table for sewing, we set up more bookshelves so for the first time in our marriage all of my books can be out, and I picked up the disaster that was the crafting area. There were hundreds of sequins and buttons on the floor, not to mention kinetic sand all over the place and coloring stuff everywhere. It took…a while.

Abe played a TON with the kids and I made zoodles and Trader Joe’s bolognese sauce for dinner. I think I also spent a lot of time on the couch. We also walked to Morgan and Jessi’s house and visited with them outside after the kids went to bed. They are so fun, and I love that walk with Abe.