Potato Soup

We decided to toast marshmallows the other day in our back yard. Being the good mother that I am, I made each of my kids eat all of their dinner before they could even entertain the idea of toasting marshmallows.  All three of my kids dislike potatoes to varying degrees. Lilly does not love them, but will eat them, Rachel will eat them when threatened or bribed, and Carson gets a disgusted look on his face whenever we sneak one into his mouth. Because dinner was potato soup, it took a little coercing to get them to eat up. Carson's last bite contained a chunk of potato, and after he ate it I sent him outside to the fire. About 30 minutes later we noticed something in his mouth. It was that darn chunk of potato. We told him he would not get any marshmallows until he swallowed it. A couple of minutes later he came out from inside the house and said "Tada!" The potato was gone, but the circumstances surrounding its disappearance were suspicious. We asked if he spit it out in the garbage and he said "yeah!" At least he is honest.

Rachel was asked to give a scripture and a prayer at primary last Sunday. While we were discussing this she asked if she could say the prayer by herself. I said "sure...what are you going to say?" She responded "umm...that Lilly feels better, that Carson isn't mean anymore, and that daddy doesn't spank us hard." Luckily they asked her to give the talk instead at the last minute.

We had Ella and Cora to our house to play yesterday. Despite the 2 year age difference, Lilly and Ella are pretty well inseparable when they are together, and Lilly goes out of her way to sort of take care of Ella. I asked Lilly to get the mail and she said "sure! Oh, wait, let me put on my shoes." A few minutes later I heard the garage door open. I looked out the window to see Lilly leading Ella to the mailbox. Ella was wearing one flip flop and one water shoe, I am sure the only two shoes Lilly could find besides her own. While Ella was here she had an accident. I was cleaning it up and asked Lilly to go find Ella some of her clothes to wear. When I went downstairs, Lilly was tenderly dressing Ella, and doing a pretty good job. I jumped in to help, and they both kind of pushed me away. Lilly obviously had it under control and wanted nothing to do with my help.

Emilia had her two month checkup yesterday. We have been seeing the doctor every week since we have been home, and she has been gaining weight like crazy. This two month appointment was supposed to be the last for a while, but Emilia lost an ounce since last week. Nothing to worry about really, but now we have to come back for a weight check next week again. I am going to be so glad when we are done with the doctor stuff for a while. Other than that, she is doing great. She has slept through the night every night for more than a week! Emilia is very sensitive to loud noises, more so than any other baby I have had. This has been an unexpected blessing in our house. Since I cannot as readily raise my voice, I have to talk much more peacefully to my children. I can also use her sensitivity as leverage to get my kids to stop fighting. "Please don't fight, it upsets the baby" works pretty well since they all love her and do not want to be the cause of her unhappiness.

Lilly was playing with the baby the other day and all of the sudden Emilia got hysterical. Lilly came into the kitchen with a very concerned look on her face and said "mom, I bit the baby." I was a little confused because first of all she told me what she had done, but also because it seemed so out of character. "You bit the baby?" I said, in a disbelieving tone on the verge of anger. Lilly started sobbing "It was an accident!" At first you might wonder how you can accidently bite a baby, but I instantly understood what had happened. With all of my babies I look at them and think "I love you so much I could just eat you up!" I am sure this is what Lilly was thinking. She loves Emilia so much she doesn't quite know what to do with all of her feelings, so she bit her.