The Year of Awesome

So. I already wrote a New Year's post. But then I went and got a little crazy and actually wrote some real goals. Honest to goodness. I'm not going to write all of them here, because heaven help us if I had to have people ask how I'm doing. Accountability never helped anyone do anything. But here's a couple. Because I have dubbed this year the year of awesome. I decided I am too young to be lame and I could do a lot of cool things if I wanted to, and suddenly I want to. So I will.

First, I am going to run a half marathon.

Yeah, that's right. A half marathon.

I'm feeling a little crazy.

As evidenced by all the spacing.
But no more spacing. I've run a couple 5k races, very very slowly, and I was feeling good. I had goals. Goals to run a 5k faster than a 3 year old. But then my sister got all crazy and said "Come run a half marathon!" And I said "Hey, why not, I am young and not lame and this is the year of awesome!" And now I'm trying to figure out how to do that, since I'm not sure I've ever gone over 13 miles straight on my own power in less than 12 hours. But it'll be fun, I won a jogging stroller, so that's not helping since I have 4 children. More helpful is the treadmill I scored on KSL for 30 bucks, That's right, 30 bucks. I would put in more spaces but I think I used them all on the half marathon. It at least lets me pretend to run without getting a babysitter.

Oh, but wait, there's more. I'm going to learn to play the piano. Because after 28 years I decided it would be cool if I could play the piano. Not that I'm taking lessons or anything, that would be ambitious. But Jessie bought me a bunch of piano books for Christmas and so once a day I sit and pretend to plunk out some stuff and I'm getting close to stringing together entire songs from easy piano books with one note in the bass clef. The children are impressed. Someday I aspire to accompany my children at FHE. If we ever sing songs at FHE instead of holding great speeches during pro wrestling matches.

Also, I am going to get my ears pierced. We're going all crazy for the year of awesome. My niece is getting hers pierced for her birthday and I thought, I'm young and cool and can pretend I'm not afraid to get my ears pierced. Maybe people don't do that after they become adults but I'm not people.

And I'm going to Disneyland. Because that's pretty much a required goal for the year of awesome. And the beach. Mostly because we've never taken the kids anywhere, except Idaho Falls and Vegas once, and thought maybe we'd try to buy their love and affection.

Well, there's more but they're a a lot more mundane and I figure that's quite enough accountability to be throwing out there. Just remember, if you're working on your own goals, that it is the year of awesome, and you too, are young, not lame, and cool. Unless you're old and lame and dorky, in which case I'm sorry. I'll try not to let too much awesome spill into your gloom. Happy goal seeking!

Ch-ch-changes

Well it's that time of year again. New Year's Resolutions! Year in Review. Auld Lang Syne. All that good stuff. We had very few expectations this year of changing much and ended up hanging just about everything. Go figure. We were jut going to chill and plan and regroup. Which is why we never make plans, because things just seem to happen to us. In case you missed all the big stuff, here is a recap of all the big changes we didn't mean to make:

• Moving, obviously. New house, new neighborhood, new ward, new school. No biggie. 
• New callings. Nursery is the sweetest gig ever, people. I really don't know why it gets such a bad rap. Food, toys, singing, and no prep? Plus we only do it every other week.
• We had Jessie's niece move in with us. That's been an eye opening experience, introducing us to the crazy and hazy world of teenagers. So now we have five kids under our roof. For a little while anyway. No one can accuse us of being sane.
• Jessie changed jobs again. Right after we moved. Because why not just make everything crazy?     Now he works for a company here at Thanksgivong point. The commute is awesome. Changing insurances again, not so awesome. But c'est la vie.

So there's the major highlights. With all the unintended upheaval we caused this year, my goal for next year is pretty much to settle and go with the flow. By which I mean we'll probably take over a small country or build a stadium or something. But hey, let's pretend to make goals. And by that I mean pretend to make goals while really just  anticipating the craziness of next year. Okay. Good plan.

So let's start with Ethan. This year we're looking forward to nursery (2 months baby!), learning how to talk, maybe getting into a toddler bed, being ridiculously adorable, in crossing his eyes, and breaking many, many things but hopefully not bones. 

Spencer is excited to improve his grammar, start some at home preschool, learn more letters and numbers, learn all the lyrics to My Little Pony songs, and potty train. Eventually. Someday. Maybe.

Kimberly is psyched to continue preschool and kindergarten prep, learn to read, make some new buddies, learn to ride a bike, grow way too tall, and design ever more elaborate and creative outfits.

Madeline will be busy busy busy, finishing first grade and moving to second, riding a two wheeler, writing and illustrating novels, being a social butterfly, learning everything, and prepping for her baptism in a year and a half. (Say what?!?)

I will pretty much lay around and do nothing, when I'm not cleaning up the never ending tide of clutter and laundry, cooking, shuttling, exercising, doing homework, shopping, reading, trying to find my sewing machine so I can learn how to use it, and remembering to breathe once in a while.

Jessie anticipates lots of changes at work, rekindling his love of puzzles, fixing rand kings around the house, starting a exercise program, becoming a male model, and cleaning all the stuff I didn't.

I'm sure the year will go exactly as I've outlined, because we never do anything rash or crazy without a lot of forethought and planning. But whatever 2015 brings, here's hoping it's as awesome as life is with now. 

Storms are brewing in your eyes

 

So I figured we should devote a post to Ethan's vision, because it gets a lot of press time in the real world. A one year old with glasses is apparently quite the crowd pleaser/shocker. So allow me to expound upon how Ethan became a loveable nerd, by answering the questions we get asked all the time. Usually I don't mind when people ask questions, because paparazzi is a noble calling. But some people say really dumb things. We'll get to that. First, the more intelligent questions:

 

 

 

Q: How did you know he needed glasses?

 

A: A few months before his birthday, he started developing a lazy eye. We didn't notice it for a while, but his eyes started moving separately and crossing at weird times. I asked his pediatrician about it at his 12 month appointment, and she said not to worry and have him join the circus. But I had my heart set on him being an Olympic curler, so we went to see a pediatric ophthalmologist.

 



 Q: How can a baby take an eye exam? They can't talk!

A: We went to special baby sign classes where they taught them the hand signals for "blurry", "clear" and "strabismus".  Or they do some tests where they dilate the pupils so they can look into the eye with special refractive lenses and measure the strength of prescriptions by the shape of the eye. Modern medicine is pretty fly, yo.

Q: So what is wrong with him?

A: Basically, he has really, really bad eyesight, like +5.5 and +6.0 for those of you with glasses. So his eyes were always turning in and focusing so hard they kind of got screwed up (that's the scientific term for it). A fun thing called esotropia, which basically means his eyes don't move and work together. You can google it if there's nothing on Netflix tonight. Which is basically lazy eye, which means besides the glasses, he also gets to wear a patch 3-4 hours a day. Hooray.

Q: How do you get a one year old to wear glasses?

A: Tell him all the cool kids are doing it. Or if he's not interested in peer pressure, you can follow him around every minute for a week putting them back on every time he takes them off until he gets tired of yelling and screaming and being tortured and resigns himself to his fate. It's a fun process, filled with laughter, joy, and candy. Which, incidentally, is a fun trick to play: put a cookie in each hand and then slip on the glasses. If you're lucky, he'll cry because he hates the glasses but be unwilling to relinquish the cookies. Ha ha ha ha. (That was an evil villain laugh.)

Q: How long did it take to get him to wear glasses?

A: About 3-4 weeks before I could do the dishes without worrying he was doing drugs in the bathroom while I wasn't looking....I mean 3-4 weeks before he was a good little nerd.

Q: How do you get a baby to wear a patch?

A: I will pay good money for the answer to this question. Otherwise, see above. It's basically the same process.

Q: How long until he was used to the patch?

A: Never.

Q: He is so darn cute in glasses. Aren't you so glad he gets to wear them?

A: Well, if it was up to us, we would prefer he was able to see stuff, and as you can see above, getting them to stay on was a piece of cake. But since he must be vision impaired, yes, it helps that he looks like a baby model. What, you want a picture? Okay.

 

Q: I always wanted a kid with glasses.

A: That is not a question, and also a stupid thing to say, because everyone wants their kid to have a vision impediment. Thanks for playing, weirdo.

Q: My kid also got glasses at a very young age. Do you want to hear our life story?

A: Yes, of course, because we are in the cool kid club now and we must exchange secret handshakes and commiserate.

Q: His glasses don't stay on very well. You should put on one of those strings on the back.

A: For some reason this is never a question, but a command. Thank you random person at the grocery store, we had not thought of such an elegant solution. Except we did, and we tried it, and it made him behave like a rabid dog trying to pull the glasses of his head and scratch  his face and mangle his glasses, so it was a rousing success. But it was so awesome we like to save it for special occasions like dinner parties.

Q: How do you keep him from breaking or losing them?

A; This is the only advice I shall give if you ever have a small child with glasses. Get the warranty. We are frequent fliers at the Walmart vision center and in almost three months have been in about half a dozen times to have them repaired and just got one of them totally replaced, absolutely free! Because Walmart loves nerds! As far as losing them goes, it is inevitable that eventually we will lose them for good. We have already had to retrieve them from the school yard, under the car in the garage, deep in the depths of our armchairs and couches, under beds, and in cupboards. But there is a small but dedicated part of my brain that seems to have specialized and does nothing but keep track of where I lost saw Ethan's glasses and make sure they are on his face. Jessie's brain does not have this special Glasses Nazi Area, so maybe someone in neurology should study that.

Well, that's probably a pretty good wrap up. If you have any other questions, feel free to hang around Walmart until we happen by, because this is where all serious medical consultations are held. He is pretty dratted cute though. He certainly looks pretty smart, though I have my doubts about his actual intelligence after watching him bang into walls repeatedly. But there's time.

Sugar and spice and everything nice

I think we're starting a new tradition called Belated Birthday Blogging! This little girl has been waiting a month for a spotlight:

I can't believe this diva is four. Finally. It seems like we always think she is older than she is because we're trying to lengthen out the time between her and Spencer. But marvelous and amazing things have befallen her since she has reached this great age. She's always saying things like, "Four year olds aren't afraid, they love dogs." And "I listen now that I'm four. I was bad when I was two." The veracity of these claims has yet to be proven, but we like the thought. Some fun facts about a four year old Kimberly:

• She loves preschool. She's always telling me Miss T said this and Miss T said that, and Miss T is the ultimate authority, She loves her friends and her letters and field trips, my oh my, make her world paradise. 
• Kimberly loves ponies, purple and pink, fashion, and all things pretty. Her favorite doll is her Rarity pony because "she's so fashion". She is very particular about what she wears. We finally convinced her to wear shirts and leggings under revealing dresses, but it was a battle. She absolutely refuses to wear anything she deems unworthy, She sometimes cries if I try to put her in something that's not "pretty". She always wants her hair like mine and her favorite styles include "messy bun", "one ponytail in back", and "that twisty braid I had at my old church". 
• Spencer is her truest friend and worst enemy. They spend most days together and they're either conspiring to flood the house, getting into the food stores, or trying to break each other's ear drums. Kimberly loves the opportunity to be the oldest when Madeline is gone at school and tries to mother and scold and boss.
• She continues to be selective in her friendships. She has two or three good little buddies who are her world and she is always begging to play with them. Fortunately she plays very well with these little friends and they are fun little girls. She seems drawn to kids older than herself, which may or may not be good when they all start school a year or two earlier than her. 
• She continues to be both super sweet and very emotional. She loves to help: help cook, help clean, help with the baby. But don't try to get her to do anything that's not her own idea, or you'll pay for it. 
• She says the funniest, most grown up things sometimes, and asks so many questions that Madeline hasn't even thought of yet. A few samples: "I prayed and now I'm closer to heaven." "When I'm grown up I want to work at Applebees. Not BYU because you don't cook and wait there." "I just forgot to watch my step." "For Christmas I want a straight stick so I can just touch and poke people." 

There's far more but I guess I can't make up for months of not posting in one night. Kimberly sure does crack us up, and I live in fear of the teenage years when the boys will be flocking and she'll be flirting and oh boy oh boy. But for now we'll enjoy her sassy and sweet attitude we couldn't get along without. 

Boy don't you know you can't escape me, ooh darling cause you'll always be my baby

Time for another installment in the series of time marching forward at an inexorable pace. I don't like it much, but what can you do? This time, the little munchkin that is growing up without my permission is my little baby. If I keep saying that, it will be true, right?

 

 

How is it possible this guy is one? Ethan sure keeps us on our toes. I thought that after three other kids I'd mostly know what I was doing. Ha. Ethan has defied every trick I used with the other kids, done everything his own way, and given us fits. But he's so darn cute. So here's some stuff about Ethan:

 

 

-He still doesn't do milk. His eczema has gotten better but still flares up pretty often and the poor kid itches until he bleeds sometimes. Hopefully he'll outgrow that soon.

-His sleep continues to be less than ideal, but the last three days he has miraculously started really and truly sleeping through the night. Eleven or twelve hours worth. Hallelujah! I know that now that I've written that down he'll be up every hour, but I've had three straight nights of eight hours and I'm feeling a little giddy and reckless.

-Mobility wise he's very speedy on his knees, and he does not like to sit still. His proficiency at escaping us seems to make him content with crawling. He can stand and take a few steps unaided but he's not thrilled about it and he often picks up his feet so we can't make him stand. Punk. I'm sure he'll get there eventually, but this is the story of Ethan: you will not force him to do anything until he's good and ready.

-The kid likes caves, tents, and other enclosed spaces that he can hide in. Thinks they are hilarious. He can now open the doors to our shower and that's his happy place. Which is fine most the time, not so great when we've just showered and it's a water wonderland.

-He doesn't talk much yet, but he likes to repeat sounds and I'm pretty sure he has a special sound for crackers. He also says mama once in a while, which I like to rub in Jessie's face since he brainwashed our other children.

-Personality wise we're still seeing his quirks unfold. He's an interesting mix of the other kids. (I know I'm not supposed to compare kids, but when they all look like each other, it just happens.) He's quieter and more observant than Spencer or Madeline, but he's got a high pitched scream and a secret diva inside. I'm pretty sure my eardrums are permanently damaged.

 

Anyway, that's probably about it for now. Four kids has been the adventure of a lifetime, but we've survived the first year, and I know without a doubt Ethan is an invaluable addition to our family. He makes us laugh, and the kids are all enamored with him. If their love doesn't kill him, we'll enjoy his antics for years to come. Happy birthday Etheroo!

The price I pay

Today we completed another fun trip to the grocery store. It was fairly uneventful, which is to say, full of tears and chaos and other mundane and normal activity. Sometimes after outings where we resemble a circus more than a hallmark card, I'll see a mother with two or so well-behaved and appropriately age spaced children and think with a little longing about running errands with a few less hands on board. Of course, I love my children, and there's that age old question: which one could I possibly give up to gain a little more peace and quiet? The answer is, naturally, none of them. And today as I processed these musings, it came to me: this is the price I pay. The crazy, noisy, chaotic price I pay. The madness before bed, the fighting and the screaming, the busyness and the destruction. All part of my payment for the life I chose. Which begs the question, what did I choose to pay for?

I choose to pay the price to see four bright and shining faces every day, hopefully smiling and happy, but always calling me Mommy. I am compensated with funny toddler jokes, hugs and kisses, walks to the park, and reminders about the joy of little things. I have been lucky enough to experience the miracle of bringing new life into the world four times, snuggling four precious newborns, seeing four little beings say their first words and take their first steps, and being an active participant in creation. I have the privilege of seeing small brothers and sisters learn to share, to laugh together, to work together, to scheme together. I get to enjoy four different and continuously changing phases of child development, for better or worse, and when one gets hard to handle another will blossom into delight. Can you possibly put a price on being both burdened and blessed with the responsibility of taking four young people on a journey from babyhood to adulthood?

So you see, I pay a pretty hefty price for this life. I have crazy work conditions and supremely hard days and more than a few trips to the edge of my sanity. But my compensation is this:

 

And somehow, when I really sit down and think about it, I feel like I'm getting quite the bargain.

Only hate the road when your missing home

Hi all! So we've moved. Flown the coop. Relocated. I would have updated you before now but it took a while to get the old internet up and running, and blogging on my phone is an exercise in pain. But now, here we are in Traverse Mountain, and life is rolling along. We're all still in the adjustment stage, some of us being cooler adjusters than others. Maybe a family member rundown is in order. I'll even throw in some pictures from the photo shoot my cousin did for us right before we got bored and decided to move.

And here's Ethan! Kid has an obsession with cords, vines, hair and all things he can pull. He is having fun at the new house and probably cares least that we moved. He has been sleeping so much better since he got his own room. He's made it through the night a few times and is not perfect but getting better at self soothing. It helps his bedroom is across the house so if I forget to turn on the monitor (which I usually don't do on purpose, but in a sleepy haze at 3 in the morning when I turn it off so Jessie doesn't wake up, it doesn't always go back on), he really has to get worked up and loud to wake me up. He has gotten to be quite a fast crawler and is just discovering the lure of the stairs, so we should really locate our baby gate. Which, besides the screws to the crib, is one of two things we lost hardware to when we moved, because we are smart, so Ethan is dwelling in a pack and play. He is also learning that it hurts to fall down on wood floors. Lucky kid gets to learn to walk in a death trap. Yay!

As far as sleeping goes, Spencer is the only one really struggling. He doesn't like sleeping downstairs even though it's only about twenty steps from our room, and he doesn't like napping in a new place. So he goes to bed about 9:30 and has taken about 3-4 naps in his bed since we got here. In an unlikely turn of events he is currently asleep (thus the blogging) but it's on his floor. At least we're getting closer. He is a crazy whirlwind of devastation and stress. He gets lost every time we step out the door. At the museum the other day he was gone for 20-30 minutes and we had security scouring the building when he magically appeared right where we left him. He breaks everything he can get his hands on. He threw a toy at our tv screen and cracked it pretty good. Then it developed the annoying habit of going completely white, black, or rainbow every thirty seconds until you pounded it with your fist, and now I'm pretty sure the pounding has spread the cracks in the LCD and now we can't see anything. So that's cool, and the most expensive thing any of our kids has broken. Spencer is cool like that.

So disclaimer, I had to steal these pictures off of facebook since only Jessie's computer has a CD drive, and apparently all the pictures I uploaded of Kimberly were in black and white, so she gets to be cool and different. Kimberly loves having her own room, goes to sleep great, and in fact has been taking more naps than Spencer, although they are generally on our couch or the aforementioned hardwood floors. She does not like going to a new primary, but on only our second week actually attending all three hours of church, we discovered she will consent to stay if she can sit with the little girl up the road with whom she has become good friends. This means she doesn't sit with her own class, but baby steps, right? She is getting into puzzles again but isn't as good as she was when she was two because she isn't as patient anymore. We blame Madeline for that one. Speaking of our little drama queen:

Madeline does not like being out of school and does not like that we moved, so life is pretty much terrible. Well, besides getting to go to museums and have play dates and have her own room and walk in closet and go on vacation to Bryce Canyon and all the other bazillion fun things we have done for her lately, life is pretty much terrible. She has already made several friends but not nearly enough because their are some moments of the day they are all busy. She has been busy writing notes about what we all do all day and drawing pictures and otherwise making messes.

I've been packing. Then I was cleaning. Then I was unpacking. Somewhere in there I held a baby and lost sleep and tried to keep Spencer from dying. There was that weekend all the children were gone at Bryce Canyon for a couple of days, and Jessie and I pretended to go on a date while we doing all day errands and cleaning our townhome. It was nice to be able to go places without having to buckle in fifty people or pack snacks or plan around short tempers and multiple naps. Ethan was gracious enough to be understanding about our largely ignoring him to get things done. Things are starting to calm down now, and I've decided to turn a blind eye to the rest of the stuff we need to organize for a while. Because YOLO or something.

Jessie has also been a busy bee. He's been working hard during the day with some stressful busy stuff and then pulling double duty coming home to a messy house and organizing. Not to mention all the random fixer upper stuff he's been responsible for. Home Depot is his new best friend. (For all our home reapir needs, we go to Home Depot. For all decorating and household needs we go next door to Walmart. We're so classy.) Hopefully we haven't killed him the past month. If you see him out wandering through your neighborhood with a vacant expression and a chocolate chip cookie, don't worry, he's just on his break.

So that's us. We're loving the new place and trying to figure out what's next. Start a major corporation? Run for President? Adopt 10 kids? Don't worry, we'll figure it out. We just don't want to be bored for too long, sitting here twiddling our thumbs and watching our children throw well-behaved tea parties.