Author: lilydarais

On Friday my friend, Candace, and her twins, Aria and Bentley, came over for a playdate. We visited while the kids played, and then Candace, Mary, Lydia and I all played Bananagrams.

Afterward we got in the car and picked up Abe. Candace’s mom, nephew and sister also joined and we all drove up to Midway to see the ice castles there. It was magical, and I want to go every year. The kids had so much fun exploring the castles, passageways, fountains, and slides. Lydia pretended to make ice cream out of the icicles and had a grand time offering everyone ice cream. Abe and I took turn pulling Clarissa along in the sled. She couldn’t sit up, so she just lay there with her hands hanging out of the sled. Every person we passed got a good laugh out of her.

At one point I bent down to pull Clarissa’s gloves on tighter, and then I stood up and Ammon was gone. I got panicky thinking about how cold it was, how it was going to be dark soon, and how he would never even think to be concerned about the fact that none of his family was nearby, because Ammon just assumes everyone is his best friend. Sure enough, ten minutes later Abe found Ammon happily chatting with some ice palace workers, and they were just starting to figure out that his parents had no idea where he was. That was a huge relief.

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On Thursday morning I went to yoga, and Abe helped get the kids ready. Mary had a HUGE meltdown because she hadn’t done one of her assignments, and I lost patience with her because I felt I had really tried my best to help her get the assignment done, but she hadn’t cooperated. In reality, I could have made a better effort to help her. It was a very rocky start to the morning, and I wish I had been soooo much more patient.

Mary ended up forgetting something at home, so after feeding and reading to the babies, I loaded them in the car and headed back to school and bumped right into Mary when I entered with her binder. Mary looked so happy eating a birthday cupcake, and I was so relieved. When I picked Mary and Lydia up after school, I asked how Mary how her day went, and she replied that it was the “best day ever!” I guess her teacher was not hard on her and one of her friends also didn’t do the assignment, so it didn’t matter. PHEW.

For dinner we had an Indian feast. I made curried eggplant, curried cauliflower and chickpeas, and saag paneer (only with, er, tofu instead of paneer). I ordered chicken tikka masala and naan from our local Indian restaurant, and we had a huge dinner when Abe came home from work. It felt kind of like a Friday because the kids got Friday off.

I took Ammon and Clarissa to the library on Wednesday morning. The preschool program there is so good for Ammon, and I think the toddler’s story time is good for Clarissa, even if she has THE shortest attention span of all my kids. I never recall having a problem with Mary or Lydia at story time. In my memory, those two would pay rapt attention. Lydia was too shy at the time to do the motions or participate, but she would sit quietly and absorb it all. Mary would participate! I remember being so charmed by that novelty. And neither girl would even contemplate wandering around the library during story time.

Ammon was, um, different. He would roam all around, but he was also curious about story time, so he would also pay intermittent attention.

Clarissa pays attention for three minutes, max. And then she’s antsy and wants to play. I have made the mistake of releasing her from her stroller, but I’ve learned that if I do that, I will pay the price when it’s time to put her back in. Her screams are deafening! So now I just take her to story time for two or three minutes, walk quickly around the library checking out books for myself or for the kids, and then go back to story time for another two minutes. And even then we just barely stave off the tantrum Clarissa is dying to throw…

But she is so cute. I had so much fun with her during the night routine because Ammon was asleep and the girls were at dance. It was just the two of us, and I got to just sink into watching Clarissa and talking with her. She is very conversational, even though she hardly ever forms a recognizable word. She points and communicates splendidly. We had such a good time.

Lydia was very happy because she is now old enough to go to Activity Day Girls. It’s at 7pm, which is normally the time she is supposed to be in her bedroom (not sleeping, but doing quiet things). She was so thrilled to be out of the house instead!

While she was gone, Abe and I had a special snack with Mary. We asked her lots of questions and smiled at her cute answers and mannerisms. Her eyes get very wide when she is being sincere, and she has the most adorable, raspy little voice.

My Saturday meal prep is paying off! I haven’t had to resort to fast food or yucky stuff once this week! Okay, okay, it’s only Tuesday. But I’m still proud of myself! On Sunday we had salmon, green beans, spinach, apple, and barley salad, and an apple sharlotka. On Monday we had eggplant rollatini (and I went out afterward for beets and pizza with Emily). Today we had cheese soufflé, made from the base I prepared on Saturday, green beans, and butter lettuce.

We also had two playdates today. Emily brought over my leftovers from Pizzeria 712, and Chloe and Ammon spent an hour playing together. Then after school Ellie Hanson came over and played with the kids until dinnertime.

After dinner, Abby came over to babysit while Abe and I went ministering to the Taohoes and the Morrells. We had so much fun and felt like we were on a date.

The kids were over the top excited to see Abby. Lydia made a sign, “Welcome, Abby!” and taped it to her door.

She also composed a poem about how much she loves Abby and had Mary read it to Abby. They worked out a signal for Mary to make when she couldn’t read one of Lydia’s words. Mary would make the signal and Lydia would read the problematic text. I wasn’t there, but I can imagine it was such a cute system!

I think the kids love Abby.

This morning I took the kids out for errands and to the Orem library while the cleaning people cleaned the house. It was so nice to come home to a clean house, especially after we trashed it so much on the weekend!

In the evening I went to Pizzeria 712 with my neighbor, Emily. She and I always have very deep, intense conversations that leave me very inspired but kind of emotionally wiped. She is a beautiful soul.

Abe called my dear former home teacher, Brother Richardson, and chatted about his work issues and fears. Brother Richardson gave him wonderful counsel and advice. We are so blessed to have such people in our lives.

Our favorite part of Sunday was after we put the babies down. Abe and I played bananagrams and a flower matching game with the girls. It was so fun!

On Saturday morning I left early to get some errands in so I could prep food for the week. As I was leaving, Mary, who had gotten up before everyone else, asked so sweetly if she could come too. I said of course, and she excitedly informed me that we were going on a mommy daughter date. I have actually been meaning to take Mary on a mommy-daughter date for a while, so I was thrilled that she suggested one!

We just did groceries together, but it was such a nice opportunity to enjoy having such a cute, cute daughter. Mary is nothing if not over the top cute. She always has been. Sometimes I don’t appreciate this because I interpret her cuteness as manipulation or even immaturity (the bad kind), but honestly, when I take a step back and remove myself from the picture, Mary is just so adorable. And because of this, she gets a lot of attention everywhere she goes. We can’t go anywhere without someone solemnly telling her how much they love her red glasses, for example.

When we got home, I hurried to prep a bunch of meals for the week and then I took off for hot pilates and bikram after. I thought I might not make it through bikram because I was so tired after pilates, but somehow I made it through and didn’t even go into shock this time!

Then I came home, did my hair for the week, and collapsed on the couch with Abe, who was taking a break from putting the basement back together and all of the playmobile play the kids had him do while I was at yoga.

After that I had a really hard practice with Mary. I feel so bad about these. But I take comfort in Prince Albert. I have been reading online about Prince Albert because I love the show Victoria. He supposedly used to hit his children’s fingers at the piano.

Before I was a parent of children who practice instruments, I would have been horrified by this. Now, even though I don’t hit my kids’ fingers, I have the utmost sympathy and admiration for Prince Albert. I mean, the man was not only a spectacular king-in-the-wings, but he was also a TIGER PARENT.  He was incredible! Somehow he made time to supervise his children’s piano practice even when he had so much going on (and sooooo many kids!). I am in awe. So I definitely don’t judge the finger hitting, and I completely, completely understand where that came from. It is maddening when your child turns off her brain and decides that she can’t/won’t do a simple task. It really is.

At the same time, I wish I had more self control and didn’t lose my mind when my child refuses to play a simple measure for the umpteenth time.

After practice, we rushed everyone into the car and drove to Olivia Marshall’s play, Annie. Olivia was Molly, and she was fantastic! Everyone had a great time, although I left with the babies at intermission to drive through Chick Fil-A for everyone else, since we forgot to feed people dinner at home. Oops. The price of practice, I guess?

After we put the kids to bed, I binge watched Victoria while Abe kept working on the basement. Thank you, my love.

On Friday I felt in a celebratory mood, and so after school I took all of the kids to The Museum of Natural Curiosity. They are the perfect ages for this museum, and they all had so much fun. Ammon and Lydia did the ropes course together while Mary stayed close to Clarissa and me. She loves Clarissa so much and always tries to help take care of her whenever she gets a chance.

Clarissa was a wonderful sharer in the baby section. At one point, she leaned down and picked up a ball that another girl had dropped. I thought she was going to keep it and that there would be crying, but instead Clarissa stood up and handed it right back to the girl who had dropped her ball. That made me so happy.

In the evening we ate the beef and barley soup I made on Thursday, and we inspected our new basement floors. They looks so great! It makes me want to do something special with the space.

Then Lydia and I left for her harp lesson. She needed to pee the whole lesson long, and I guess that feeling made her totally crazy. She acted completely out of control the whole lesson long. I was so thankful that our normal lesson time is at 6:30am, because if this is how she would behave for evening lessons…wow.

Then, despite her lesson behavior, I took her out to Crumbl to get some cookies. I then let her stay up until midnight reading Harry Potter, which was a bad idea because by midnight she was practically drunk with fatigue. But I do have so much sympathy for her when she gets so into her book and doesn’t want to put it down. It’s hard for me not to indulge that.

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Ammon pooped in the potty today! Afterward he donned a superhero cape and “flew” around the house on a rolling pin. He was a superhero!! The guys who are redoing our basement floors after the flood thought that was pretty funny. Ammon also spent the rest of the day referring to himself in the third person as “the superhero.”

E.g.” The superhero pooped in the potty!!” and “The superhero wants a snack.” etc. It was so funny and cute.

I also took Ammon and Clarissa to the park this afternoon. Ammon, of course, wore his superhero cape there. The first thing he did was fall and get, in his own words, “soaking wet!”, but he still kept the cape on.

Lydia is also reading so much these days! She is blasting through the Harry Potter books. She is almost done with book three and spends almost all of her spare time reading.

This is the third day in a row that Abe is not coming home until super late (or, in Monday’s case, he didn’t come home at all). As much as I miss Abe and am always so happy to see him come through that door, I actually really enjoyed doing it all myself today.

Normally I clean while Abe does the kids’ night routines, but since he’s here, I do the night routines. And I really sank into appreciating my kids and enjoying how delightful they can be. We still had hard music practices, but that was a discrete hour in an otherwise very happy, peaceful evening.

I didn’t feel that well this morning and so I spent a lot of it curled up on the couch watching art history documentaries and working on a photo book for 2017. I couldn’t actually relax that much because Ammon demands that I accompany him every time he goes potty, and because he’s terrified of pooping in the potty, he’s constantly running to the potty because his body actually does need to poop, but then he gets freaked out and hops right off. Three minutes later we do the exercise again. But since I didn’t work out today or yesterday, I just counted these potty trips as my exercise. There’s a lot of deep knee bends involved in helping him in and out of his pants and undies (he also believes he needs to be naked from the waist down in order to go potty).

I wish I had taken pictures because Clarissa was in the best mood all day and was SO CUTE. But my phone was dead in the morning and then in the afternoon and evening, life is on super speed and there wasn’t a moment to take any photos.