First things first: Grandma Darais’ surgery went extremely well today, and she is doing much better. We are very thankful. Abe has resolved to spend at least one lunch break a week with her in the event that she returns home, and I am trying to figure out how we can make it down to Provo more often to see her. We are very happy she is doing so well.
I think Abe had a great day at work, but we saw each other for a grand total of less than five minutes today. I did get one phone call in after my final, but I think we talked a lot about our various physical ailments (Abe’s now sure he has a virus, and I think I might have a virus/sinus infection combo).
On the school front, I aced my final exams in my lab class and that made me feel really happy. I sometimes wonder if it’s okay that I’m spending so much time away from my children, and getting some validation that I’m making progress in acquiring a much-desired skill felt great. I think after this is all done, I will appreciate being home with my children SO much more, and I will love not having so many competing interests. But for now, I love being at school when I’m there.
Before school, we had a fun morning with the Pe’a’s. Jen offered to teach me how to craft cute decorative blocks, and it was so fun crafting with her! I wish I had a picture of my blocks, but the day just slipped away and now they feel sooooo far away (even though they’re just downstairs…but it’s past midnight, and that feels like a trek). Anyway, I wasn’t the only one having fun. Lydia was in heaven playing with Natalie because Natalie not only has a ton of princess attire, but she is an excellent sharer.
In the meantime, here’s a picture of Mary at home reading a book about Babies:
Today we got the scary news that Abe’s Grandma Darais was doing poorly and the family was notified to come say good-bye. I drove the girls down to Provo and picked up Abe at work.
We drove to the hospital, and while we were there, her heart started responding! Not only that, but she elected to have a surgery that might help her condition. We will know more tomorrow, but for now, things are looking as good as they possibly can. We love her so much, and it was so meaningful to have a chance to tell her that. I wish I could have said more, but it was so emotional seeing her in such a hard condition that all I could really say was “I love you.” I guess that is what matters most, but I would love to one day tell her how much I love visiting with her, hearing her stories, and listening to her testimony. I also appreciate how good of a grandma she’s been to Abe. I hope we can still have that chance.
That’s really the most important news of the day. We are praying for her and hoping that she makes it through the night and tomorrow’s surgery successfully.
Here are some pictures from this morning and the hospital.
Playing in their room this morning.Abe was entertaining Mary. (She and Suzanne took this picture on Suzanne’s iPad.)
I took a bunch of happy pictures today, but don’t let that fool you. I’m pretty sure I spent the whole day yelling at Lydia–and occasionally at Mary. While at Sugar House Park this afternoon, I listened to this mom talk sweetly to her children and felt insanely jealous. I thought, “Wow, that woman seems exceptionally cut out for this mom business. I bet she never yells at her kids.” And then I proceeded to feel horrible about myself, even though I fully realize that:
1) I am nice to my kids on the playground too.
2) Who knows how that mom acts when she’s tired and not standing in the sunshine?
Which brings me around to the tired bit. I just don’t have any energy lately! It is so annoying. Today I decided to power through it and try to fold laundry, but I couldn’t even do that. With terrific effort, I managed to bring my kids to play group, the grocery store, Kid to Kid, and another park today, but by the end I couldn’t do anything but sit on the couch while the kids tore up the living room around me.
I think I’m tired because my coughing wakes me up at night. Like I said, it’s annoying, and I’m appropriately annoyed.
In addition, Lydia has invented her own swear words. Obviously, she doesn’t know what a swear word is–and I hope she hasn’t been in earshot when I let stuff slip–but she’s started yelling “SOCKS!” and “SAUCE!!!” when she’s extremely angry. I asked her what those words meant, and she explained that she says those words when she wants to hit. Lately, she’s been combining the words and the action–hence much of my yelling, but I was mildly amused that she essentially invented her own swear words. My dad always used to say that swearing was for people who were creatively stilted in the language department. I think Lydia’s invention would have made him happy.
On to the happy pictures and more happy news–Abe had ANOTHER great day at work. It’s kind of a miracle. When I met Abe, one of the first things I learned about him was that he hated his job, and the whole time he’s worked for Guardsmark, that sentiment has persisted. This switch to Qualtrics has been amazing.
One thing he loves is his coworkers. For example, today he left the flashers on his car, and one of his coworkers noticed and sent a memo out on some company thread that Abe didn’t read. When Abe went to his car after work, the person who noticed (who parked next to him) was ready with cables to jump Abe’s car. He knew the car’s battery would be dead, so he got prepared to help–even though he didn’t know whose car it was. When you work with people like that, it’s hard to dislike your work.
Lindsay Gardens for play group, 11 am:
Liv and Mary swinging
Paige pushed Lydia and Ada on the merry-go-round thing.
Sugar House Park, 3:30 pm:
I must have read A Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats to Lydia a million times. Watching her hit the tree with a stick made me recall “A stick that was just right for smacking a snow covered tree,” only this tree lacked snow.Cimbing this rainbow-monkey-bar contraption. At the top she panicked, but I stood below and she made it over. One thing I LOVE about Lydia is her caution. I know I should be cheering for her ability to surmount an obstacle, but I’m most proud of her sensitivity to her own safety. That’s my paranoia right there, thank-you very much.Hey! I just noticed that inadvertently took a picture of the mom who talked soooo sweetly to her kids. Doesn’t she even look like a nice mom? I’m still jealous.Wistfully watching some kids swing.I took these pictures of the girls swinging right before I gave Lydia a push that accidentally knocked her off the swing. We were both traumatized, but thankfully she was fine. I proposed driving home for a cupcake break, and that seemed to solve the problem.
For FHE, Abe built an obstacle course and dressed the girls up in their owl and monkey costumes. They had fun. I was supposed to give a spiritual thought, but I have felt less-than-spiritual (and I forgot), so we skipped that part.
I awoke to the sound of Lydia running into my room and chattering about her birthday presents. As I rolled over I heard, “Oh, Mama, I need to go potty…uh, oh, I’m having an accident…”
I wish I could say I was composed in the face of this wake-up call, but I wasn’t. I gave Lydia a shower, and even though she hates showers, the good news is that her hair was wet and easy to braid. For the rest of the day, she didn’t have to deal with hair in her face (and I admired her tight braid).
I was, as usual it seems, low on energy this morning, so the girls spent the first two hours playing by themselves. I walked by their room to hear them jumping on Lydia’s bed and giggling. I grabbed my camera, but I was too late. I did take a couple other pictures, though. Grandma, Abe said you requested pictures after we got lazy and posted some picture-less posts last week. I want you to know that these pictures are for YOU!
After a couple hours, Mary came into my room and cried until I suggested that we go into her room and play blocks. She stopped crying immediately and nodded hard. I spent the next hour playing with the girls and sneaking in some room-organization/cleaning while I was at it.
Then I fed the girls a lunch that ended in too many cupcakes. That got Mary ready for bed, and Lydia played on the iPad while I did homework and studied for my ServSafe exam and other final. I’m pretty sure I failed the ServSafe exam tonight. It was hard! It was hard to study for and hard to take. In order to progress in the program, I need to pass it, and I think I can take it as many times as I need…I just don’t want to have to go through the studying rigamarole again. I had to do sit through fourteen hours of online lessons, not including the practice test, in order to prepare. Mom, can you pray that I passed so I don’t have to do this again? Your prayers always seem to work, and my prayers feel tired and slightly faithless.
I came home before the girls got to bed, and it was so fun to hug and cuddle them. Being away always makes me appreciate time with them so much more. Also, David came over to play video games with Abe, and before they played, the three of us chatted in the kitchen for a loooong time about parenting. David was remarkably engaged as Abe and I bored him with descriptions of our daughters’ personalities and our own parenting dilemmas, and he gave us great advice.
Now I’m trying to work up the motivation to take a much-needed shower before going to bed. Abe and David are downstairs playing an enthusiastic video game before David returns to Boston.
Oh! And Abe had a fantastic day at work!! He came home raving about how great it was. He also had a perfect home-teaching experience on his way home. He caught the family just when they were having some computer problems he helped solve, and then out of the blue the dad (who grew up LDS but no longer practices) gave Abe some money for a fast offering. It was kind of a textbook happy-home-teaching experience, and that on top of his already-great day made this day a winner in Abe’s book. He did struggle to manage Lydia’s continual tantrums throughout the evening, but after a great day at work and a great home-teaching experience, even hours of straight melt-downs don’t seem like such a big deal–or at least Abe didn’t seem to be phased.
My eyelids just drooped. Time for a shower and bed.
This morning our competition team didn’t meet, so I celebrated by taking myself straight to Instacare. The doctor figured out right away that I have a sinus infection. She didn’t waste any time; even after I tried to tell her I was a little scared of taking antibiotics because I got C Diff last year, she interrupted and told me that I had nothing to worry about. I guess they run a tight schedule over in Instacare!
By the time I arrived home, Abe had started making pancakes, and he was just about to help celebrate the cat’s birthday. Every couple days Lydia announces that it’s Puss’s birthday, but today she was especially insistent that we celebrate. We indulged.
Then I practiced and gave Mary a piano lesson. Lately I have been too sick and tired to give Lydia lessons, but Mary is easy. I just helped her play “Twinkle” over and over. Abe took pictures.
Then we all ate lunch and took naps. Well, Lydia played on the iPad, but everyone else napped. Lydia had a meltdown when her headphones stopped working, so Abe got up and helped her. He then bought his plane tickets for his friend’s wedding in July. He ran into some snafus and, long story short, discovered that you can cancel your ticket if you call within twenty-four hours. Phew! We are so happy for that policy. He’ll try again next week.
I dragged myself out of bed to practice for the second half of my culinary fundamentals final next Thursday. We have to make chicken chardonnay, mashed potatoes and glazed carrots. I swapped out the carrots for green beans tonight, but maybe I’ll practice the carrots on Wednesday. My final last night tested a ton of knife skills and required me to make cream of mushroom soup and broccoli hollandaise. I accidentally scrambled my hollandaise in the thirty seconds it took me to take my plate out of the oven and arrange the broccoli on top, but I didn’t have time to redo it, so I just kind of smoothed out the globs and prayed for the teacher’s mercy.
I also have a test on Monday that certifies us for managerial positions in a food establishment. I really should have studied today because that test covers a ridiculous amount of material, including the scientific names of a bunch of different food borne illnesses that I can never remember or keep straight. Maybe I’ll find time on Monday…
But back to today. Qualtrics sent Abe’s work team to the Jazz game tonight. Because I’m pretty sure a basketball game might just bore me straight out of my mind, Abe took Lydia on a daddy-daughter date. She had a blast, although when she met Abe’s co-workers she didn’t respond to any of their attempts to engage in conversation. Abe explained that she is shy, and I explained to Abe that just yesterday I gave Lydia a long lecture on not talking to strangers. She was just following instructions.
Talking to her cat for twenty minutes and describing her evening. “Yeah, Puss, I’m at the arena. We’re at the Jazz game. Talk to you later!”Watching the game. Abe said she locked in and pounded popcorn the entire time.Almost smiling. When asked what her favorite part of the evening was, Lydia replied, “They winning!” Apparently, it was an exciting win.
Meanwhile, I spent the evening trying to catch Mary up on all of the things she’s missed out on because she’s a second child. We cuddled and read books, built towers, ate felt food and FaceTimed with my mom and grandma. She didn’t want to go to bed, so I got to rock and sing to her. We usually don’t have time to rock or sing to the girls before bed, so this felt really nice. She wrapped her arms around my neck and gave me big kisses–right before she started slapping my cheeks and giggling…
I’m excited to go apply some Vick’s before bed. I love that stuff–it’s the difference between breathing and not breathing for me. Here’s to sleeping through the night!
Today was a little bit of a hard day on the home front. When I chatted with Lily at our kid-handoff in front of her cooking school, I learned that today the doorbell woke Mary from her nap, Lily learned Mary could squeeze through the second floor railing, a strange beggar came to the house asking for money (and this is after the Elizabeth Smart book she just read), and she’s feeling sicker than yesterday. My heart definitely went out to Lily to hear about these struggles, especially since things are really starting to go well at work.
Today I received my account list that I will be responsible for to call on. My list is comprised almost all of non-profit organizations, meaning Qualtrics wants me to become expert in selling to that industry. I started working on the list today and found great joy working on my own accounts and not just setting up meetings for other salesmen. Also, during lunch we had a regional meeting and my team lead commended my hard work in front of every body and I was awarded fifty dollars. Sweet!
Lily just got home from cooking school and reported that she feels she did very well on her final (Yay!). That is especially amazing since she was feeling so unwell. While Lily was at cooking school, the following transpired.
I picked up mail from my mom’s office (Lydia asleep in the car) and then drove home (Lydia still asleep in the car). Lydia woke up as we pulled in the driveway and proceded to be an emotional disaster for the next two hours. I do not fault her. She took a late nap, and she was just out of sync. She melted down over a variety of topics such as curry being too spicy (Mary ate it), being tired, being cold (right after her bath), not wanting to comb her hair, wanting the ipad, wanting to sit in my lap……you get the idea. Finally at the end of the day, right before going to bed, she cheered up, partially because she enjoyed watching Mary run around only half-way in her pajamas. I only got half-way putting Mary into pajamas before I had to intervene with another dramatic emotional episode from Lydia. Everything ended on a good note when I put the kids to bed.
Right afterwords, my brother, David, came over. He is in-town from his PHD studies at Harvard. We chatted for a while and then played one hour and thirty minutes of Wayne Gretzky Hockey on Nintendo 64. We had so much fun that we made plans to do it again Monday.
Pictures!
Lydia asked to go to bed while Mary ran around and she was amused at Mary half-way in her pajamas
Lily took the girls to the library today.
Lily made a knockout curry today and included Lydia in the process.
This morning over breakfast, Lydia turned to me and said, “Mama, what is it when I want something that Mary has?” I answered by telling her the word jealousy and explaining the concept a little bit. Lydia paused and then told me that Mary is a good sharer (which, for all of her hair-pulling antics, she really is). I agreed and then suggested Lydia could try to share more with Mary.
We ended the day full circle with Lydia screaming and crying on the ground because she wanted the pencils Mary had during our FHE craft. After a long post-tantrum cuddle, I asked Lydia what she was feeling, and she told me she was jealous. At least she knows, right?
The only eventful thing we did today that I don’t have pictures for is institute. We attended institute for approximately twenty minutes, at which point Lydia announced she was hungry and wanted to go home. I didn’t protest because the presenter was basically just summarizing Mark chapter by chapter. I was hoping for a little more commentary and a little less straight summary.
So I came home, fed the girls, and got a two hour nap in. Afterward, Lydia wanted to have a play date with Ada. I thought it was a long shot since it was already 3 pm, but it turned out that Paige was free! So we had a fun play date:
Then we had dinner and FHE, wherein we talked about gratitude and wrote a thank-you note for the Valentine chocolates our neighbor gave us all the way back in February…
Tantrum.The tantrum increases in intensity.Recovery.
We had so much fun with David, Karin and Jay at dinner that we accidentally stayed until 11 pm. We were the last ones at the restaurant, and now it’s almost midnight. In light of our desperate need to go to bed, I really just want to throw up pictures with captions and then go to bed.
Except! Except that I forgot to take pictures of my lunch with Misty, and that was a huge highlight of the day. Abe took a long lunch from work and took the girls to nearby IKEA for free food (kids eat free on Tuesdays) while Misty and I had our lunch date.
Misty and I went to my school’s restaurant, and the theme today was “Spring.” I forgot to take pictures of the food or the menu, but it was all very yummy. The starter was ahi tuna with rhubarb salsa…except that we couldn’t discern where the rhubarb was, even though we searched, searched, and searched some more. The second dish was a salad with bagna cauda (again, couldn’t quite figure out where that was) with a salad and bread stick. It looked pretty fancy. We ordered different entrees, and then had molten chocolate cakes with white mocha ice cream for dessert. The menu was set, and I am now really looking forward to my restaurant class where we get to put together these menus, plate them, and serve them to actual people. In my present class, we throw out most of the food we make because there’s never enough time to wrap it up to take home.
Strangely, the rest of the day felt fun and productive too, although I’m not sure how that happened because I’m still sick, queasy, and easily tired. I think the girls were just more self-sufficient than usual, so I got to get more done with less effort. Plus, Mary napped from 2 pm until 6 pm, and Lydia napped from 2 pm until almost 4 pm. That probably helped.
Then Abe came home and I frantically folded laundry until the last minute, when we picked up David and headed up Mill Creek Canyon to meet Karin and Jay at Log Haven. There’s a gorgeous waterfall right across from the restaurant, and the ambiance of the restaurant felt really…nice. The best part was just the conversation, but the food was amazing too. I should have taken a picture of my entree, but alas, I started eating before that could happen. We did, however, take a shot of Abe’s beet soup starter.
Still sick here. I can’t wait for summer. Abe and I both slogged through our days, but the girls were in pretty good moods today. That was a blessing, because I spent a lot of the morning working on my power-point for a school presentation today, and I practiced. The competition is coming up soon, and even though I’m planning on withdrawing after the first round so that I can attend a family reunion, I still want to do my best. All that to say, the girls were very patient with me today because I could have scored a lot higher in the attentive-mom department.
The girls entertained themselves, though. Mom, that’s one of the dresses you got for Lydia’s birthday. She loves it. it’s her BEST twirling dress, and she specifically requests it so she can twirl.
I did listen to Lydia tell me stories, though. That was so fun. Lately I’ve been making up stories for her about her cat because that allows me to exert minimal physical effort and yet still feel like I’m kind of on the job. Today I got the pleasure of being the audience while Lydia told me stories…mostly about a little boy who died because he didn’t listen to his mommy. Every time she concluded with his death, her eyes would get really round and she’d nod knowingly.
Pleasure abated slightly at that point. Maybe I am too vigilant about pointing out the potential hazards all around all the time. “Lydia, do NOT run across that parking lot because you could get hit by a car and DIE.” “Lydia, do NOT hang on that bookshelf because it could fall on you and you could DIE.” “Lydia, hold mommy’s hand while we walk on the sidewalk because there are driveways in front of us and you could get hit by a car and DIE.” Also, in the spring we get ants and then we spend a lot of time killing ants. There’s too much death in her life, it seems. Tomorrow I’m going to take a break from homework and ant-killing and instead point out all the new little plants and the baby partridges we have in the neighborhood. Perhaps a little more focus on life and beauty will give Lydia some new happy endings for her stories.
Speaking of happy, tonight on my drive home from school I listened to the radio, and one of my favorite pieces came on. Holst’s Jupiter turned a sleepy, windy commute into an actively joyful, at times downright glorious experience. I have a copy of it somewhere. Maybe I’ll play that in the background during my life-is-also-happy discussion with Lydia.
Staying on the topic of happy, I came home to discover my friend Paige had dropped off a plate of chocolate chip cookies. I dropped out of our preschool group this morning because I just feel too overwhelmed right now, and she kindly brought over a good-luck-on-finals treat with a super sweet note. I felt so happy eating my favorite food in the whole wide world, chocolate chip cookies, and reading her note. That really topped my day off in a terrific way.
And tomorrow is going to be a fantastic day! Misty and I have a lunch date, and in the evening Karin is taking us to Log Haven for David’s birthday! (He’s in town!) Wow. A double whammy of fun. I can’t wait. Better go to bed so I can wake up and have it be tomorrow already.
Here are the pictures Abe took while I was at school:
Mary Berry.
Then he asked Lydia to smile and look at the camera. She couldn’t manage to do both actions simultaneously, but she did get down a succession:
Abe and I both woke up sick again. Boooo. But even though Abe was up all night coughing, he somehow still had energy to take both girls to church. For my part, I was feeling queasy and exhausted, so I stayed home. Apparently, at the end of church Lydia called her cat on the phone and continued to chat with him for the next twenty minutes:
“Hi cat! Oh, yeah? Uh-huh. Okaaay, because we’re cwossing the street now. Oh-oh-oh-oh!! Yep! Talk to you later!” (etc.)
Abe then went back to church to get trained on the new teaching style the church is promoting. He came home sooooo excited. Teachers are now only supposed to talk eight minutes or less, so the classes will be driven by questions and discussion. Our only regret is that we love listening to our Sunday School teacher, Larry Perkins. He asks a lot of questions, but he also tells wonderful stories that illustrate doctrine so beautifully. We could listen to well more than eight minutes of him. In almost every other case, though, we’re excited for the change.
I stayed home and read some commentary on the New Testament and then switched over to watching a ton of interviews surrounding Elizabeth Smart. I checked out her memoir yesterday and could not put it down–I finished it at 11pm last night, and all morning I could not get her story out of my head. She is such a beautiful, resilient person, and I admire her strength, courage, and example in making a difference for others. I would now count her among my top heroes, and I could not tear myself away from all of the interviews on Youtube.
The vindictive part of me also enjoyed watching Brian David Mitchell get interrogated by a Salt Lake City Police Detective and an FBI officer. I didn’t watch the whole thing, but the Salt Lake detective was obviously LDS and knew his scriptures; when Mitchell tried to pull his pseudo-religious crap out, the detective called him on it in a way that made me want to stand up and applaud. I’ve always had trouble with the idea that some people are evil through and through, but after reading about Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Barzee (who fed her children their pet rabbit for dinner and smiled while they ate it), I have finally decided that there are people who are completely shut off to anything good.
Back to the events of today. Abe played with the girls all day. He crafted with them, took them to the park, fed them, and played chase-and-throw-the-babies. He told me that today he felt like a kid again, and that he never anticipated how fun being a parent would be. I think it’s fun because he makes it so fun. He’s such a terrific dad. And husband. And person. I’m a fan.
Even though I basically lay in bed all day, I still feel sick and tired, so I will wrap up. I didn’t take any pictures today, and I don’t think Abe did either. I also can’t remember the last time I showered, so I’m going to go take care of that now…
