We had a great morning planting new plants in our garden, and halfway through Sophia, Max and Misty showed up for a play date. We finished planting together and then I talked Misty’s ear off about homeschooling. I love talking to Misty.
Afterward, I practiced a lot of piano while the girls played. During Mary’s nap, I lay on my bed and read and Lydia came in to lie down next to me and color. I love that girl.
Then I had the WORST night of cooking school ever. I came home so discouraged. I am the slowest, most mistake-prone person in my class, and even the chef, who is the nicest, most patient chef in the school, started getting upset with me by the end of class. I just made so many mistakes on my dish! I spent an hour telling Abe how far behind everyone else I am, and now it’s so late that I don’t have much time to blog. Sorry, Mom and Grandma! I also neglected to take pictures today. I WILL do better tomorrow.
The girls went down for naps and quiet time super early today, and instead of doing homework like I should have done, I read a couple hours into The Return of the King. It turned out to be an apt read; while I was feeding the girls an after-nap meal, I killed about a dozen ants in my kitchen. I couldn’t help but think about Tolkein’s description of the Rohirrim in battle–specifically, I thought about how they sang as they fought. I didn’t feel like singing while I was killing ants, but the glimmer of satisfaction I felt helped me understand that initially bewildering passage a little better.
After the girls were fed, I took them outside to play:
Then I took them to the library, grocery shopping, the gas station, and back home. Abe arrived shortly after we did, and after dinner he bathed and chased the girls while I cleaned the downstairs and practiced. I was supposed to go to school tonight, but I’m feeling kind of icky and a brand new cold has introduced itself at our house. I am trying to avoid getting sick yet again.
Oh! I forgot to mention that while I was at school yesterday, Abe cleaned the whole house. I came home and fell in love with my husband all over again. It was soooooo nice, especially since I never feel like I have time or energy to clean these days. I hate the messes that accumulate, and having them gone has felt like THE greatest luxury. I’m going to try to be better at staying on top of the messes since today I enjoyed my mess-free life so much more than my regular mess-filled life.
I stayed at preschool this morning. Misty had the kids make “giraffe skin” out of yellow paper, cut sponges and brown paint. Afterward, we took the kids out to the back yard to play.
Then we came home and I gave Lydia another piano lesson before lunch. Her technique is really coming along, although I was a little impatient today and our lesson ended in tears and hugs. I had a little bit of an emotionally down day today, and I felt so bad for taking it out on Lydia.
Abe wanted to take me out to Smashburger to celebrate my cooking competition on Saturday, so we met him there before school.
While I was at school, Abe was home with two very melodramatic girls.
This was after Mary got put in her crib for not behaving, and Lydia was denied a princess puppet show because she refused to clean up. Misery loves company.But they did have a princess hair night again.
Then Lydia attempted to knock Mary in the head with the iPad. Thankfully she missed. While she was being disciplined, Mary ran around the house naked. When Abe found her, this is what he saw:
She was typing code into his laptop.Lydia perked up and joined her.
Guess my night learning about different dry heat/wet heat methods to cook food was pretty tame in comparison. Abe’s downstairs running off the evening’s stresses on the treadmill, and I am just about to try to forget mine by picking up my book.
Oh! Mom and Grandma, I am about to post some pictures from yesterday onto yesterday’s blog. Abe forgot to email me some cute pictures he took from his phone. I’ll just tack them onto the end of yesterday’s blog.
I won my cooking competition this morning!!! Well, okay, okay. They announced it was a tie, but when I got home and looked at the scores, I realized that the judges forgot to circle/add up one of my scores, so I technically won by one itsy bitsy little point. But still! I got a ticket for two to our school restaurant and a Ninja chopping machine. Abe and the girls came and cheered me on, and it was so fun to see their smiling faces through the glass.
The surprise ingredients weren’t that hard, really. They told us to use orange roughy and apples on our plate, which had to contain a starch, vegetable, sauce and garnish. Here’s what I did:
I made a blue cheese polenta cake, beet/carrot/apple/poppy seed slaw with raspberry vinegar, baked orange roughy and a candied lemon garnish. The blue cheese was rancid; I thought it was tangy, but I didn’t realize it was rancid until the judges absolutely tore me apart for it. Also, I plated my fish upside down. Oops! Thankfully, the other two competitors in my division made the same mistake. We’re all learning.
Then we came home and ate lunch. Ironically, I had to throw out my food before eating it all because we were in such a rush to clean the kitchen. Also, Abe had to leave early because he forgot to put a diaper on Mary this morning, and there weren’t any in the car. Oops! Mornings are hard for him.
I spent the girls’ hours of quiet time finishing my most recent book, Bomb: The Race to Build–and Steal–the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon, today. It was a total page turner, and now I am scared that we’re all going to get blown up by the crazy people in power around the world. I sneaked to the library just before they close to get some more books to help calm me down.
My relationship with Mary deteriorates by Saturday afternoon because I’m gone all evening Friday and all morning Saturday. She gets so mad at me that when I finally get back, she screams if I touch her and clings to Abe for dear life. The only way we get back on friendly terms is if I play peek-a-boo with her feet and let her step on my face. I’m not kidding:
Also, Lydia found grown-up socks today and wore them the rest of the evening.She also made Abe wear her headband.
Lydia and I had another piano lesson today. I remember how hard it was to sit still when I was little, and I’m so proud of her for enduring. We made it to thirty minutes today. When I told Abe I want to try for an hour on Monday, he asked me to keep it to thirty minutes because he’s a more fun, compassionate parent than I am. Maybe we’ll compromise at forty-five. Our poetry session was truncated by my need for a nap, but we did read “Tiger, tiger, burning bright” and “The Lamb” by William Blake.
I have a TON of pictures from today, and since I have to get up early tomorrow, I’m just going to post them with captions.
Rose came by this morning and asked if I wanted to go on a walk. Of course! We had a great walk, and Rose gave the girls stickers.Then I took the girls to the library (and read down some more fines).
Then we headed home for a play date with Misty, Sophia and Max. I love them all so much. Max is starting to army crawl, and he is just the cutest.
After they left, I put Mary down for a nap and gave Lydia another piano lesson. I set a timer for twenty-five minutes. I think she could do longer sessions than that, but I run out of steam. I’m going to try for at least half an hour next time. When her piano lesson was over, I gave her a cookie and cuddled with her on the couch while we did another poetry session. We read “Heaven-Haven: A Nun takes the Veil” by Gerard Manley Hopkins and talked a lot about Aunt Lydia (a nun) and angels (since that’s what Aunt Lydia is now). I love that poem, but I really wanted to work more on “God’s Grandeur,” which is my favorite. Next time.
Oh! And we read Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 (“Let me not to the marriage of true minds”) and talked about it a bunch. Lydia decided (on her own) that Shakespeare was writing about the relationship between her and her cat. Um…..
Speaking of her cat, Lydia brought her stuffed animals into my room while I was doing homework and she was supposed to be having quiet time. From there on out, we had “quiet time” in the same room.
Then I went to school and worked on the following:
Asparagus soup.Beef au jus. The potatoes Anna could have been less gray, the plate needs fewer broccoli pieces, the beef slices need to be larger, and the gravy drizzle more cohesive.
While I was at school, Abe took the girls to the ward party.
Lydia was actually thrilled, but you wouldn’t know unless you knew her…
Mary rode Chester tonight (much to the dismay of her terrified older sister).Abe doing his hair for the crazy hair competition at work. He met his goal for the month today, too! Go Abe!
This morning I whipped the house into shape before preschool.
I found Mary trying to wet her toothbrush while I cleaned the bedroom. The other day Abe found her crying because she got stuck on top of the toilet tank…
I was supposed to teach about farm animals and the letter “q,” but I never got around to “q.” We got stuck on the making-butter part of my lesson, wherein the kids were all supposed to shake jars of cream into butter. It didn’t work, but they had fun shaking. Thanks to the internet, I found out I could just stick the cream in the food processor and change it into butter that way, so I did that and we all ended by eating bread and butter.
Sarah did most of the shaking. With her arm stamina, she would have been an amazing asset on my midterm!We took the buttermilk that separated from the butter downstairs, dipped chalk in it, and drew pictures.The little ones had fun watching everyone.Afterwards, we had a play date with Ada while Paige dropped some paintings off at an art gallery in Park City. The girls watched scenes from Frozen for a while before going on to play in the princess tent Clark and Swathi gave them for Christmas.Abe took this picture while I was in class. Apparently, there was some music making while I was gone.We had a lot of Frozen time today. This is right before bed.
I spent all morning and the early afternoon at school, turning out French toast for a breakfast with the president of the Utah chapter of the American Culinary Federation (turned out she wasn’t hungry and didn’t eat a thing), washing mountains of dishes, and getting briefed on our team’s strategy for this year’s competition.
Next Saturday is my first black box competition, which is a competition where the judges put out surprise ingredients and you have to turn out a meal in an hour (like the show, Chopped). I am so nervous and am sure I will panic and blank, but it will be good experience. At the library today I checked out a ton of cookbooks on dessert because after the Saturday competition our team will have a pow-wow and decide what dessert we will make at the November ACF competition. It has to be an autumn-appropriate dessert that’s traditional but with some kind of modern twist. I saw a recipe for persimmon tea cake with kumquat glaze and thought that looked promising. We’ll see what my teammates think.
When I came home, I found this:
Abe made me pancakes, and Lydia scribbled a post-it note for me. It was so sweet. Also, Abe makes better pancakes than I do. Mine always come out so uneven.
Then we all took naps–except for Lydia, who would occasionally pop in our room announcing hunger or a desire to engage in some kind of activity requiring Abe and me to exert energy we simply didn’t have. I wish I were a super high-energy person; I could be such a better mom! Instead, I end up mumbling directions to Lydia from bed on how to procure herself animal crackers and cookies.
After Mary woke up, Abe and I dragged ourselves out of bed and took the girls to the library and on a round of errands.
When we got home, Lydia burst into tears at the prospect of dinner and begged to go “straight to bed” instead. Since she’d snacked a lot in the car, we obliged. Mary stayed up and ate animatedly with us. She has a new word! When we ask her how her day went, she smiles and says, “guh” for “good.” I am so worried because up until now, her only word has been “bah” for “bye.” Now at least she has a two word repertoire.
Then Abe and I watched the Olympics and I wasted time online. Abe still has to plan his lesson tomorrow, so I’m going to do some homework and then go “straight to bed,” just like Lydia.
Lydia woke up this morning the sickest I’ve ever seen her (except for when she had an ear infection). But even though Lydia was the sick one, Mary was the needy child today. I think she gets upset when I’m away at school, and the day after she gets mad when I do anything that doesn’t directly involve her.
The following evidence of that demand indulged:
And then she tripped over her feet and cried for an hour and a half. I held her for most of that time, and the only thing that stopped her crying was when I took pictures of her tantruming (is that a word?) on my legs and showed her the results.
Lydia was pretty low-maintenance all day.
Abe had another good day at work, and I wasted massive amounts of time online when I wasn’t feeding or attending to children. I really need to start practicing again, since I stopped after cutting myself a month ago in school. Maybe tomorrow…
This morning we had a play date with Lalitha and Eden:
Eden danced for us.We all loved watching Eden dance.Mary was so sleepy, but she was mesmerized by the dancing, too.
Then I fed the children, set Lydia up to paint in the basement, and put Mary down for a nap. Then Lydia took a nap.
Representation of what happened during quiet time. I copied pictures off the internet for preschool tomorrow, called/researched local preschools for an hour, lesson planned, and did homework.
Then I went to class. Tonight was carbs night, and in addition to all the carbs we cooked, the chocolates class next door was sending over their midterm projects. I feel so sick right now. Time for a shower and bed.
The girls watched “Let it Go” from Frozen for a little bit this morning.
Then we ate breakfast and read books until it was time for Institute. Today Institute featured some artist who has studied how Joseph Smith looked in life, and so the talk was slide-centric. Unfortunately, Mary was pretty tired and sad, so we ended up leaving early.
Then we came home for naps. I could have done so much during their nap marathon! Instead I wasted massive amounts of time online and just dozing off. But after their naps, Anique and Fleur came over for an impromptu play date. I should have taken a picture since Fleur and Mary are almost the same age, and they were so cute together. Next time.
Abe came home in time for us to head over to the Jewish Community Center for their preschool open house. We love the JCC more than ever, but it seems to be the most expensive preschool around. Gulp. Good thing we saved! The other good news is that we get a student discount since I am in school, so that’s great. And Lydia loved the preschool. She didn’t want to leave and talked the whole way home about how much she wanted to go there.
Then we came home, had FHE, and watched more of the Olympics. The ladies’ short program was tonight, and I am so glad we got to see it.
On a different note, we said many prayers for Ukraine today. One of my friends posted an excerpt from the Book of Common Prayer on Facebook, and I had never read anything from that before. It was beautiful and so relevant. A phrase she posted later has been ringing through my mind ever since: “Dona nobis pacem.” That’s what I hope to fall asleep praying tonight.
