Author: lilydarais

On Monday the kids had school off because of parent teacher conferences. All of the kids slept in, so Abe went to Lydia’s by himself. (Mary’s teacher was out and we have to go on a different day sometime for her.) This blog is basically private and we are writing for ourselves and our present and future family. So for those audiences, this next bit will hopefully not be off-putting, but informative and fun.

Lydia is a model student. She used to chatter in class a lot with her best friend, Grace, but the teachers separated them and that solved that. She is at a fourth grade reading level (although we thought that sounded a bit low, considering she can speed through Harry Potter books almost as fast as I can! She’s now on Percy Jackson and averages a book every two days. Maybe she’s skipping a lot of unknown vocab and got docked for accuracy…).

She’s at the top of her class in math. She is completing the multiplication unit and moving onto division. The goal for second grade is to complete the subtraction unit, which is what everyone else is doing. Her advanced state is entirely, one hundred percent due to Lydia’s own gift and effort. I have not worked on math with her since she was homeschooled, and honestly, back then I was so burnt out after reading and harp that we hardly did any math. I am too busy and burnt out to do more than ask her if she’s done her math homework, and sometimes I don’t even do that!

The teacher asked Abe and me to help her memorize her multiplication tables months ago, and both of us have never even tried. We’re always “too busy” or “too tired” or just bad parents, I guess. But Lydia, on her own, memorized her tables and is passing off that unit.

She’s also, her teachers said, extremely creative. This is definitely something we all know because in her spare time, when she isn’t reading, Lydia is ALWAYS creating things! She’s cutting out things, drawing, crafting, and sometimes even writing poetry for fun. This is a gift inherited from Abe, I feel sure.

Finally, her teachers said that whenever they ask, “Are there any questions?” Lydia always, always raises her hand. She almost never actually has a question, but she just feels some sort of primal need to respond to that question, it seems. Haha!

Abe and I were so thrilled to hear this report. It was SUCH a struggle to get Lydia to read, and I am thankful, thankful, thankful that she now has that skill. I am so grateful and amazed that she’s gifted in math. As a mom, I feel like to get my kids to achieve anything I have to put in a massive amount of blood, sweat and tears behind the scenes. It is kind of amazing and THRILLING to have Lydia achieve something remarkable without me lifting a finger! Negligence for the win!!

So after Lydia’s great report, Abe went to work and I spent the morning cleaning. Then I sat down with the kids and celebrated Black History Month with them by reading them out of Langston Hughes’ biography. I am still sick and congested, so every few paragraphs would end with me hacking, coughing, and gasping for air. But we plowed through and discussed Langston Hughes until I felt like my voice was almost gone.

Then we all sat down and watched Hidden Figures together. Mary didn’t understand the movie and was actually drawing racist conclusions about it, so I sat beside her and translated the whole thing for her. And then, to make sure those racist conclusions didn’t linger, I talked and talked and talked with my broken, raspy voice with all of the kids all the way to the Butterfly Biosphere in Lehi. I remember learning at Harvard that if you don’t actively teach kids to be anti-racist, they will organically pick up on the racist messages of our culture and unknowingly adopt racist biases and prejudices. I wish I had had more health and energy this month to celebrate black history more vigorously, but I guess all we can do is our best, right?

At the biosphere, Lydia started feeling REALLY sick. You can see it in the pictures. Soon after these were taken Lydia vomited in the lobby. She actually vomited blood and mucus everywhere because she’s been having loooong and frequent nosebleeds. It was so sad, but I couldn’t help her as much as I wanted because I was frantically running around with Clarissa on my hip trying to find/round up Mary and Ammon so we could help Lydia to the bathroom and leave. It was crazy, horrible and hectic and I felt so bad for Lydia who had to puke by herself while I was running around.

We took it really easy in the evening. Pictures (from before the puke):

On Saturday I went to hot pilates and yoga…and I couldn’t make it through yoga. I thought I was either going to throw up, pass out, or both. So I ended up leaving early and spent the rest of the day virtually immobile in bed. Poor Abe, who has been on the verge of a meltdown, had to take care of the kids all day–with the exception of his morning run, which he reported was amazing.

I basically did nothing all day. Every time Abe tried to join me in bed a kid needed help, a neighbor would ring the bell, or he would get a call that required him to get up and move around. It was very sad.

Lydia also was immobile the whole day, but she was on the couch. She slept on and off all day, had a fever, and had a sore throat. We felt so sorry for her and let her watch as much Harry Potter and Percy Jackson and The Olympians as she wanted…which meant the other kids watched too.

In the afternoon Abe decided that even though he was about to break, he also wanted to get out of the house. So he took the kids to the park. We have pictures:

On Friday we had Clarissa’s well-check in the morning. She is in the 95th percentile for height and 59th for weight. She is perfectly on track for her physical development, although her vocabulary is on the edge of normal. The doctor advised me to read a book a day to her, so we came home and I read fifteen. The problem is Clarissa doesn’t sit through books like Lydia used to. I could read to baby Lydia for hours, no problem, but Clarissa will sit through one book–maybe two, but the rest of the time I’m reading to her as she zooms around the room, climbing on tables and spilling water deliberately all over the floor. She’s just too busy for books, I guess.

Then in the evening I had book club and we discussed The Age of Innocence for two hours. I absolutely LOVED this book, and was thrilled to participate in such a great discussion about it. I have grown to adore the ladies in my book group.

On Thursday Abe started shaking from anxiety in front of his computer, so he booked a massage and tried to stave off a panic attack by getting one right away. Work is actually going really well, he says, but it’s so intense, fast paced, and action packed that Abe is basically on the verge of a breakdown.

In the meantime, I was having a pretty peaceful morning at home cleaning the whole house, doing laundry, and reading to the kids. I also made chicken enchiladas for dinner and they were, if I do say so myself, pretty yummy. I also spent a lot of time rereading Harry Potter. I just love this series.

On Wednesday I totally lost it after school. Wednesdays are hard because we try to squeeze in dinner, homework, harp and piano, and dance outfit changes in before dance at 5:30pm. If the kids are being slow eating, I get very stressed out at the thought of ALL we have to do before our hard deadline of dance practice.

Anyway, the kids were being slow and I started screaming my head off about how nobody listens to me and how I wish they would just do what I asked the first time instead of ignoring me so that I repeat myself over and over and over until finally I give up and start YELLING, like this:

I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT I WOULD DO IF YOU KIDS WOULD JUST LISTEN THE FIRST TIME!!! IT WOULD BE SUCH A SHOCK THAT I MIGHT JUST HAVE A HEART ATTACK AND DIE OF SHOCK ON THE SPOT!!

…At which point Lydia, who was sitting glumly by her harp, replied, “Mom, that’s why we never listen the first time. We don’t want you to have a heart attack and die!”

She is hilarious, that girl.

Honestly, I spent the rest of the evening in a deep state of penance, letting the kids stay up way too late, and just mourning the fact that I can’t be a reliably calm, sweet mom all the time.

I don’t remember what happened on Tuesday but I do have this picture of a creation Lydia built. We were sure Clarissa would destroy it right away, but it survived a full three days before we finally disassembled it ourselves!

Today I went to both hot pilates and bikram in the morning while Abe managed to hold down the fort at home. He was exhausted so they all watched Lilo and Stitch and were about to start lunch when I got home.

I helped Lydia through another difficult practice and then drove her to a friend’s house for a play date.

Then I showered, Abe took down our Christmas lights (we’re early according to our normal standard, which is, um, May), and we did the pretty jigsaw puzzle again. We accidentally put it away before Mary saw the finished product, so I spent most of Clarissa’s nap happily and hurridly re-assembling it.

After that I helped Mary practice. During that time Abe did an AMAZING job cleaning the house. Afterward we drove to Barnes and Noble to get the rest of the books in Lydia’s new series, Percy and the Olympians. We also got her a book of Greek Myths because she is learning about them in school and loving them in her new series. I got Mary two little books too because she feels left out a lot.

Then we stopped at Trader Joe’s, put the babies down, and now I’m blogging and Abe’s working. It was a very relaxed day (practices and almost dying in my workouts aside…).

On Friday we went to the Blosils’ house for a pop up restaurant that their son, Alex, put on. They had completely transformed their home, and their whole family and some friends were working the house like a restaurant. It seemed the entire ward was there, along with a lot of other people.

When Abe and I got there, we were seated a table with Craig and Shannon Young. We spent the next two hours enjoying great food and the lovely company of the Youngs. Nic Blosil played Un Sospiro on the piano, some of the ward young women serenaded Randy with a cappella singing, and it was an all around delightful evening. We enjoyed it so much.

We came home and watched some art history documentaries together, which we love. It was a great start to a THREE DAY WEEKEND!! So needed, so needed.

We forgot to take more pictures than this one of the grilled cabbage course. But this was super delicious and makes us want to grill cabbage from now on, like maybe every day.

On Valentine’s Day I still felt bad, which was so sad because I love celebrating this holiday with my family.

I took the kids to the library in the morning, though, and then I did some errands even though I felt like death.

We came home, I put the Clarissa down for a nap, and then I can’t remember what I did after that. I probably did laundry or took a nap myself.

Then we picked up the kids and I took them all to the new Crepery restaurant in the Riverwoods. I was going to make crepes for Valentine’s Day dinner, but since I had no energy, we just bought some instead. There was a really nice older man there who happened to be the dad of one of Abe’s coworkers. He really took to the kids and talked to us a lot while we ate our crepes.

Then we took our leftover crepes home and discovered Abe had come home early! He brought a big beautiful bouquet of flowers home and was puttering in the kitchen. We did piano and harp practice with the girls and then had chocolate fondue with strawberries for dessert with the kids.

Afterward Abe was so wonderful and talked with me and listened to me until I actually stopped feeling so ill. It was very healing to just enjoy the loving presence of my amazing, wise, infinitely kind husband. I love him.

Then we watched It Happened One Night, because we have a goal to work down the list of best romantic films of all time over the course of our future Valentine’s Days. This film would have been great but the misogyny in it was honestly disturbing. I’m so glad I’m alive now and not back then. Happy Valentine’s Day!

On Wednesday I decided to forget the fact that I STILL feel so sick and sat down at the harp with Lydia. We have not done proper practices for a while, so we squeezed a painful one in before ballet and jazz.

I don’t remember anything else that we did all day. I know that I wanted to go the library in the morning but literally had no energy, so mostly I spent the morning sitting on the floor watching Clarissa and Ammon play. They bring me a lot of joy.