Duck Duck Goose

We had Ian and Maya here for a couple of days. They just went home this evening. Earlier today I took all the kids, including the two of them with me to teach boot camp. When we pulled into the parking lot Maya asked, "Why are we at the church?" I told her "This is where we do boot camp." She looked a little unsure and asked, "Can I play duck duck goose?" I told her "yes."  "Can I sing Twinkle Twinkle Little star?" I said she can sing it all she wants. She gave an enthusiastic "Yesss!" While we were there, Lilly took Maya in the nursery bathroom with her to keep her company while she (ahem) went poop. Having two kids in a locked bathroom is never a good idea, so when I discovered them I asked Maya to please unlock the door. I asked her why she was in there while Lilly was going to the bathroom. She looked like someone who had just been rescued. "I don't want to be in here anymore." I told her I didn't blame her and let her escape. Lilly told me she was keeping her in there because she (Lilly) was scared. They were fun to have.

Christmas

Christmas is over, the tree is down, the lights are put away until next year. Now I can breathe a sigh of relief and sit down with a clear, not crazy head to compose this blog. I think the kids had a great Christmas. We keep it simple, but Santa made sure he brought at least 1 big gift for each of our older kids (he seemed to know that Emilia was content sucking on wrapping paper). Rachel got a camera and Carson got a t-ball set. The biggest, most impressive gift however was Lilly's. She got a guitar. It is the envy of all the other kids. It is not very often Lilly gets the best thing. Even if she does end up with something better than Rachel, it doesn't seems as good to her as what Rachel has, perhaps because she is so used to Rachel having the first, best things. But here, the guitar was the clear winner. Carson is at the perfect presents age because he thinks everything is amazing. His favorite gift was the gun Rachel got him from the dollar store. All my kids really are young enough that Santa can get away with doing Christmas pretty cheap. At one point Rachel and Lilly opened a box of art stuff at the same time and both exclaimed "Whoa!" I asked them what the present was and Rachel said "I don't know." Lilly also got an ice cream maker from her cousin Asher, which she loves. She was telling Elizabeth about it and said "This is the present I got from my special friend, Asher." Then she kept asking me if we could go get some "whupped cream" so we could use it.

We have a few developing Christmas traditions at our house. By Christmas Eve, I am tired and not at all interested in cooking a big meal, so we go out. Just us and the kids, and usually Uncle Cody. On the way home we look at Christmas lights. Then we set out cookies and a note for Santa, and it is off to bed (for the kids anyway). So far we have been lucky. Our kids sleep in Christmas morning. This year they did not even stir until almost 9am! Christmas morning we spend at out house opening and playing with presents. Then the real fun begins for the kids. We head over to Nona and Papa's house to play with cousins and open more presents. Then they play, play, play until late into the evening. Finally, we roll their over-sugared, over-stimulated bodies back home and try to put them to bed. The day after Christmas this year, I was anxious to get the house back in order, so I sent the kids to their rooms to get dressed and start cleaning. Then it occurred to me that post-Christmas is one of the very rare times we have nothing going on, and there is no rush to get back to life. I called the kids back up and said "I changed my mind. Go play with your new toys!" We had a wonderful, laid back December 26th. And the house even ended up clean by the end of the day. Good lesson for me.

I was spoiled this year. Shelby got me season tickets to Shakespeare Festival. I have to admit I suspected that was what I was getting. A receipt came in the mail a couple of weeks ago for the tickets. I opened the envelope just enough to realize that I may have spoiled a surprise. To cover up what I had done I threw the envelope away and pretty much talked myself into the fact that I was not getting tickets. The truth came out on Christmas Eve, and Shelby was pretty disappointed. I wasn't though! I am super excited. I also got a lot of chocolate and some stinky cheese. Spoiled spoiled spoiled!

Just a quick non-Rayl anecdote. We have Ian and Maya at our house today. Ian just asked if he could have a hot dog. I told him we didn't have any hot dogs. He said "How about ketchup?" "You want ketchup? What are you going to put it on?" He shrugged and said "I don't know." He settled on a carrot.

I dropped Emilia yesterday. See, I could keep this to myself. Nobody needs to know except those of us who were there, but I can't help myself. The whole thing was so surreal. I got her out of bed to nurse her one last time before I turned in for the night. I was just going to sit down when she curled up in a ball and rolled right out of my hands. She landed on her stomach/face, and seemed only slightly shaken. I have heard her cry harder after being mauled by Carson. Here is the interesting thing. I did not panic. Had the same thing happened when Rachel was a baby, I would have probably broken into guilty sobs. As it was, I just let out a surprised shriek, picked her up, and nursed her back to sleep. I am not sure if my calm manner is a result of having had so many little babies survive small trauma, or if my semi-conscious thought was, "Well, it isn't as bad as heart surgery, and she survived that!"

Cry Baby

Emilia loves noise. It has been an acquired taste for her. In the beginning, anything above inside voices would make her cry. Now she seems lost without the chaos. We dropped all of the kids off at aunt Summer's house except her. On the way there she did not make a sound, but once the car was empty she started talking to herself. Talking progressed to complaining, which progressed to full-on hysterics. The only time she ever cries in the car anymore is when she does not have company. My perfect little baby is no longer sleeping through the night. My theory is that she is hungrier now. Somehow just nursing is not doing it for her anymore. We have been feeding her cereal in the evening and she gobbles it up, which makes her my only child ever to actually like baby cereal.

Lilly's preschool class made gingerbread houses at our house last week. All of the moms came to help, but Lilly wanted nothing from me. She wanted to do it herself, which is great. I believe independence is an important part of building a child's autonomy...in theory. In practice, it took all of my self control not to jump in and make her gingerbread house for her. There was no order to Lilly's gingerbread house, no vision. At least not my vision. Of course the point was that she got to be creative and have fun, which she did. And her gingerbread house was just as beautiful as a house designed by a 4-year-old could be. It looks like I might be making my own gingerbread house this week.

On the way to karate yesterday Rachel got discouraged when she could not get her seat belt buckled. She exclaimed "All the bad stuff in the world happens to me!" I might not be mother of the year, but I happen to think Rachel has a pretty decent life, so I took her claim pretty personally. "Oh Really Rachel? There are people in this world who don't get to eat every day. There are people in this world who are so sick they can't get out of bed. There are people in this world who don't have a house to live in. Now do you really think all the bad things in the world happen to you?" There was a brief silence before she said "yes." There is no reasoning with a 6-year-old.

Over the last few months we have had someone elaser's kids to play over at our house more days than not. On the days we do not have extra kids, my kids are at other people's houses. I love this coming and going of children. Our house is full of laughter and chaos. But there are times it makes me feel slightly frazzled. I was contemplating this feeling earlier today when a thought occured to me. It is not that I am overwhelmed with these children and the friends and families they belong to. It is almost like there is so much love, service, and consideration going around amongst these families that my finite little heart wants to explode! The thought instantly made me smile. We are so blessed!

Oxy Clean

To further demonstrate Rachel's complete faith in any commercialized item, I have the following story. Rachel asked me if I have a thing called Oxy-Clean. "I DO have Oxy-Clean!" I am sorry to admit I felt a little pride in actually owning one of the hundreds of commercialized items she thinks are necessary to our daily life. The next day I used what was left of my Oxy-Clean, and threw the bottle away. Rachel saw it in the trash and read me the riot act. "Mom! Why did you throw it away?" "I'm sorry Rachel, but it was gone." "Well, you have to get more! We NEED Oxy-Clean!" I asked her if she felt like she needed it because of all the laundry she has to do. She gave me her coy little smile, and let the subject go.

Lilly ate a hot dog yesterday. This is her first meat in months, so it was kind of a big deal. She was offered mac n' cheese or a hot dog. She said she wanted a hot dog and asked her if she was sure. "It has meat in it" I said. She told me "I don't want the meat, but I do want a hot dog." I said, "But the hot dog is meat." Again, not quite understanding she told me "I do want a hot dog, but I don't want meat in it." We went round and round like this until finally she ended up with a hot dog. After she was half way through she showed me the hot dog and said "mom, there is no meat in this!" Apparently a hot dog is processed enough that it no longer has the taste, texture, or look of a piece of meat. I do not know if the hot dog lunch is the beginning of the end of Lilly's vegetarianism, or just a fluke. 

My little boy is growing up. He is talking a lot now, and I can even understand most of what he says, although it is still a guessing game sometimes. We even get complete sentences and phrases such as "Hi Lilly! Daddy's here!" The girls went to a basketball game with Shelby a couple of weeks ago, and I kept Carson with me. To ease the pain of not being able to go, I took him through the drive through to get a burger (one of his favorite things). He was still crying about being left out, and was not amused with my offer of a burger. I ordered one for him anyway, and when I tried to open the bag to give it to him, he cried even harder. Assuming he wanted to take it out himself I handed it back to him. Between the tears and agitation, he was having a hard time getting the burger out, which only made him cry harder. I finally pulled over, took the burger out of the bag and unwrapped it for him. When I handed it back to him, it was like someone flipped a switch. The tears stopped and he gave me a very appreciative "Thank you Mommy!"

I know it seems like every other day I am writing about a doctors appointment for Emilia, but here it is anyway. She had her 4 month checkup yesterday, which aside from getting her immunizations was a total waste of my time. I had no concerns, no issues, nothing to discuss with the doctor. Both Dr. Hanks and I were thrilled at the monotony of the checkup. Emmy's only very minor issue is that she is not rolling yet. I am not worried. She gets nowhere near the floor time her siblings did for fear that she will be mauled.

Christmas Lights.

Emilia had a checkup with her cardiologist yesterday. Her heart is perfect! Not only that, but she weighs 12 pounds, which puts her in the 25th percentile. For my babies that is gigantic! She is "talking" a lot, and is very social. While Dr. Womack was listening to her heart she was talking his ear off. He had a hard time hearing her heartbeat because of the disruption. We finally put up a crib for her and she loves it. It is nice for her to have a protected place where she can move around without getting mauled. She is still the favorite kid at our house.

Up to this point in our married life, Shelby and I have never put up Christmas lights outside. We have always had the best intentions, but then the season gets busy, or it gets too cold outside, and we just let it slide. We were not able to get away with that this season. Our neighbors put theirs up the other day, and it was all Rachel and Lilly talked about for days. "When are we going to get Christmas lights like Amber?" or "I wish we lived at Amber's house." When we finally did put them up Rachel said "I want them on every last tree just like Amber." Darn neighbors. They are up now, and I think they look great. Every night when we turn them on Carson about has a heart attack. He looks out the window and yells "mismis ligh, mismis ligh!" I love that my kids are at the golden age for Christmas. Everything is so magical and exciting, yet their expectations are still pretty low as far as gifts go. Rachel is starting to want a little more expensive gifts, but Lilly and Carson still want very little. This point was illustrated by the following conversation I had with the girls.

Me: Rachel what do you want Santa to bring  you for Christmas?
Rachel: An iPhone and a computer!
Me: Umm..Santa doesn't bring a lot of those to kids.
Rachel: Why not? He knows how to make EVERYTHING!
Me: Lilly what do you want for Christmas?
Lilly: Umm...a coloring book!

We put up our Christmas tree last night. Rachel was telling me not to forget the star. She said, "I know! The person who didn't say the blessing at dinner gets to put the star on top (pause for effect). Hey, I didn't get to say the blessing!" I think Lilly giggled throughout the entire process. Carson spent the evening trying to put his own lights on the tree because that is what Shelby was doing. At the end of it we all sat down to hot chocolate and rice crispy treats, and Shelby and I told them about our own Christmas memories.

For the life of me I cannot remember if I have mentioned Rachel's boyfriend. His name is Walker and he is very sweet. She refers to him as her boyfriend, but I am not sure that he is aware of this. His mom does boot camp with me, so they spend a lot of time together while we are exercising. The two are joined at the hip when they are together. Last night Rachel told me we should do boot camp every day so she could see her friends. I asked her which friends she was referring to and she said "Walker.." "Is that it?" I asked. "Umm, yep."

Ok, two quick funny stories. I was watching Lilly bite her nails with a rather disgusted look on my face. When she noticed me she said "I eat my nails." I told her I thought that was gross and she said "Not snails. Snails are gross. I eat NAILS."

We have really stepped up our family scripture reading lately, in part due to Rachel's insistence. On Wednesday night Rachel and I came back late from karate, and Shelby was on a conference call. It had been a long day, and it was bedtime. Rachel reminded me about scriptures and I told her we were going to skip reading that night. She said "No mom, scripture power! You have to be strong for the family!"