Author: lilydarais

Abe left on a work trip today and the kids had the day off of school. Under normal circumstances, this would be a terrific day, through and through. I love having the whole day with all of the kids, and Abe stayed home an extra two hours in the morning because he’s been gone so much, so that was awesome. But we now have a baby, Clarissa, who refuses to sleep. She no longer naps, and she protests bedtime to the point where I am taking her to the doctor tomorrow. I fear she has given herself laryngitis from screaming. Also, not only does she stay awake all day, but she is craaaaaazzzy all day long. I thought Ammon was a handful–and he totally was!–but I really do think Clarissa has him beat.

(When they fight, she CERTAINLY has him beat. She takes no prisoners…pulling out his hair, grabbing his face, pushing him, hitting him–and she is STRONG, by the way–and through it all Ammon just cowers and screams in pain.)

Anyway, after I spent the morning chasing Clarissa around the cul-de-sac and prying her off of neighbors’ power tools, etc., she finally threw one major fit (after about ten other ones) wherein I didn’t catch her quickly enough as she pitched herself backward onto the street. Her head hit first and I was TERRIFIED I would pick her up and blood would be everywhere. Thank goodness she was fine.

I will admit my next thought was, “Hallelujah. For sure she’ll sleep after this!” …and I promptly went in to feed her and attempt to put her down for a nap.

No such luck. She played and complained for an hour in her room, after which I called it quits, fed her lunch, and piled everyone in the car for a trip to Red Butte Gardens, per Mary’s request.

We did Mary’s activity because: Mary lost her first tooth today!!!!! She is so proud of herself, and her smile is seriously the cutest thing ever. She was eating and apple I had peeled, and out popped her tooth! She and Lydia ran in from the porch squealing and delighted.

So with that excitement propelling us on, we drove to Salt Lake and spent a couple hours in Red Butte. During that time, I will add, Clarissa was completely insane and tried to pitch herself into the pond, the fountains, and off the ledge of the children’s garden. None of my other children attempted this so I never even realized there was a ledge there, but lo and behold there is. And Clarissa found it. And screamed in protest when I dragged her away, as she screamed when I dragged her away from every other hazard she discovered. She also drank water out of a standing pool of water that had collected in a bucket before I could run and stop her, and so now I fear she has worms on top of her laryngitis.

Other than that, it was a wonderful outing. The sun was shining, it felt like spring, and all of the kids said it was the best day ever. After we ate dinner at Whole Foods and then drove home. I will add that Clarissa DID NOT SLEEP IN THE CAR EITHER. I thought that was a feat beyond belief, but again I assumed it meant bedtime would be a snap. Wrong again!

When she started screaming at bedtime, I got the other kids all tucked in and basically ran out of the house to Barnes and Noble to calm down for an hour. I got some things for Mary from the tooth fairy (because the first tooth is special) and I got a book for me.

Here are the pictures from the day!

Seamus, our friendly leprechaun, visited us again. The kids were delighted.

What really thrilled me, though, was that Abe got home from his ski trip in time to have dinner with us! I was out chasing the kids around the cul-de-sac and visiting with neighbors when Carlee pointed out Abe’s car. I literally screamed with joy. It was a rough weekend without him. We had corned beef, colcannon, roasted carrots, toast, and rainbow cake to celebrate his return. Oh, and Saint Patrick’s Day.

Here is a video of when Clarissa was first introduced to her Toddler bed:

 

On Saturday I woke up feeling slightly buzzed from stress. Having stayed up until 11pm with Clarissa the night before and having had Lydia crawl into bed with me during the night–not to mention waking up to go to Ammon during the night–I was exhausted and honestly dreading the day. I didn’t know how Clarissa’s nap would go and didn’t feel hopeful given what happened on Friday. And without a nap or solid bedtime to count on, the day just looked bleak and hopeless.

Nevertheless, I dragged myself out of bed and somehow survived the day. I am back blogging and don’t remember much except that every second felt painful. Clarissa refused to nap. I felt slightly out of my mind by the end of the day.

Best to not focus on my end of this day but instead throw up a picture from Abe in the Tetons with his friends. I was genuinely thrilled he got to have this ski trip because he has been on the verge of a breakdown for a while and really, really, needs and deserves a break. So this month he gets two ski trips with different groups of friends on two back to back weekends. He had a wonderful time on this one:

On Friday morning I went to yoga, and afterward I came home and collapsed in bed for a while. I should have been helping with all of the morning craziness, but yoga had taken it out of me. I quickly regretted this moment of weakness, because in the extra time I spent not parenting, Clarissa learned to climb out of her crib and open her door.

This was a crisis of no small proportion. It meant no nap time and no bed time. Our usual nap and bed routine is normally very straightforward: I give her a bottle and deposit Clarissa in her crib. Heretofore she has been resigned to her fate, does not protests, and simply sucks herself to sleep.

No more. With her newfound skill, she realized she has power. And not only does she use this skill to exert it, but she couples that with loud, repetitive screams that basically perform the function of a Harry Potter world dementor. The screams kill all hope, joy, and desire for continued existence. At bedtime I spent an hour outside of her door lying on the floor in agony, then spent an hour comforting her in her room, then gave up and just took her down at 9:30pm to celebrate Suzanne’s birthday with everyone (they had all just come back from the girls’ final performance of Mary Poppins), then lay outside her door again until 11pm, at which point she finally decided to stop screaming and go to sleep. It was the worst.

Also, Abe left on a ski trip today. I am so thrilled he gets this chance, but the timing was so crazy and ironic.

Picture:

 

On Thursday morning I took the kids to the library. If I didn’t know how good the story time is for Ammon, we would not go to the library anymore. Clarissa won’t sit in her stroller, and chasing her around involves a lot of tantrums when I have to pull her off of forbidden things. Her attention span for story time is so short. And her obsessions are trying to suck water out of or off of the drinking fountain (I have a heart attack every time) and pushing buttons for the elevator. It is so hard.

In the evening we went to the Crofts’ annual pi party. As usual, they did an amazing job throwing a celebration of PI/PIE.

On Wednesday my mom came home from Seattle! Everyone was so happy to see her. The girls made her tons of cards while she was gone as an expression of love and because they missed her. We were in the middle of making pizzas when she came in and everyone jumped up and ran to welcome her back home.

Then we read about Harriet Tubman together during dinner before rushing the girls to the Covey Center. Tonight was the first performance they give of Mary Poppins, and they were so excited! Abe and I went to see them and were so delighted by their adorably earnest performances.

The girls had their play rehearsal all day on Tuesday, which meant: No homework! To celebrate our free time, we went to the park for two hours to have a picnic and play.

The girls clearly love doting on Clarissa. Also, Ammon made sweet friends with an adorable little girls just his size and age. She was spunky and darling.

Then we went to get ice cream to continue our celebrations. It was the first time we allowed Clarissa to handle her own cone by herself. It was a mess and everyone was charmed.

The evening was kind of rough because Abe and I were having an emotionally difficult relationship day. But we ended up talking, talking, and talking until we felt happier and more in love than before the hard episode. Also, I learned about what I can do to better help Abe feel loved and cared for when he is going through panic and anxiety. He is my favorite.

On Monday we woke up at 4:45 am (not realizing Daylight Savings had happened the day before–thank goodness for automatically updated phones!) and got everyone ready for the flight.

Our flight back to Utah was loads better than our flight to California. For one thing, we started from the Long Beach airport–the best and easiest starting point ever! And then Clarissa made our lives amazing by falling asleep in Abe’s arms during the flight. Thank you, sweet baby. All of the other kids slept on and off too.

We were in happy, grateful moods by the time we got back to Salt Lake.

After this delightful walk to our car I spent the rest of the day feeling exhausted and worried about Abe, who had to work a full day. I took a nap and still felt sick from fatigue when I woke up. Clarissa took a FOUR HOUR nap, which is a record for her. The kids spent the day playing with their wands and enjoying their day off from school. Abe came home and broke the news to me that it was daylight savings time, which was terrific because that meant it was–to our infinite surprise and delight–bedtime!!!

On Sunday we did our best to get everyone ready and fed so that we could go to church. We didn’t realize it was daylight savings so to our befuddlement, it was 9am before these things happened. (The fact that Clarissa slowed everything down by pooping in the bath didn’t really help.)

So we drove straight to the Getty, my favorite museum on the planet. I couldn’t believe it had been over a decade since I last visited. (I used to spend a lot of time here when I lived in California with my dad.) My favorite thing about the Getty is the museum itself. To me, every part of the Getty feels like a deep breath of pure air. The travertine, the sunshine, the water, the gardens, the art…it’s one of my favorite places on earth. I don’t ever want to go a decade without visiting again. (Honestly, I’m trying to figure out how to relocate so I can be docent there or just move straight in, if they’ll let me!)

We attempted to do a tour with all four kids, but midway the earpieces for the entire group broke down, and with the stroller we couldn’t get close enough to hear our guide. So Abe took the kids outside to play while I browsed the gift shop for puzzles, prints for our dinner conversations, and some books. Then I took the kids to the play room (which is awesome) while Abe explored the museum. These were my happiest hours on this trip (and it was mostly a very happy trip!).

The following are pictures of paintings Mary asked me to photograph:

And back to experience photos:

Now these are photos Abe took of art he loved:

After the Getty, we went to the Santa Monica beach and spent a couple hours playing in the sand…and the waves. I had no intention of letting anyone get wet, but by the end, everyone except Clarissa and I was completely wet and sandy–including, of course, Abe.

After the beach we had frozen yogurt for dinner. The person working at the shop was the NICEST person ever. His name was Rudy and he was so sweet, asking us questions about Utah, our kids, and our church.

After this, we went to the L.A. temple and visited the visitor’s center there. Ammon pooped in the potty there!!!! We were soooo proud of him.

And then we drove to the Homewood Suites next to the Long Beach airport and went to bed ASAP because we had an early morning flight to catch. It was a wonderful, glorious day.

 

On Saturday we all got up insanely early because Clarissa crawled into bed with Lydia and me around 4:45am, and then the kids were up about an hour later. So we gave everyone baths and then walked around Hollywood. We stepped out of our Airbnb literally onto the Hollywood sidewalk stars, so we spent a lot of time searching the stars for names the kids know (Daniel Radcliff and Emma Watson, to be specific. We found Daniel but not Emma.).

Then we went to breakfast at Mel’s Diner. The food was overpriced and not great, but the atmosphere felt very appropriate. We were still so hungry after breakfast, so we went to a donut shop on the Hollywood strip (I really don’t know what you call it, but the part of Hollywood where they have stars on the sidewalk. It reminded me of Vegas so I am calling it the “strip.”).

After this we headed over to Universal Studios. We were so excited to visit Harry Potter world!!!

After we had toured the castle, done the rides (well, Abe and the kids did those), procured wands and practiced our spells, we ate lunch at The Three Broomsticks. We were starving and it was deeeelicious.

After this we went to the studio tour line.

Oh. My. Gosh. It was seriously the longest line I have ever stood in (almost two hours of passing Clarissa back and forth and snapping at Ammon, who kept trying to escape, all the while on the heaviest day of my period and suffering through the plantar fasciitis pain). I kept looking at how far we had to go and feeling waves of despair each time. The only way I survived this line was meditating hard on how transient time is, how God exists out of time, and how at some sure moment I too would exist out of this specific spot in time. And hooray, here I am blogging from my spot in time NOT IN THIS LINE.

The studio tour ended up being Lydia’s favorite part of the trip, which is saying something because Harry Potter world did not in any way disappoint. The studio tour had a 3D experience of King Kong fighting dinosaurs, flash floods, earthquakes, car chases, Jaws eating a diver, a thunderstorm, lots of set displays, and was just very exciting.

After this we were about to head home, but Abe noticed a special effects show and we got almost front row seats. It was an INCREDIBLE show, with a woman getting lit on fire, stunts galore, and sound effect demonstrations. We were so happy to end off Universal this way.

After this we headed back to our Airbnb in Hollywood, where we picked up some pizza and went to bed.