The Sleepovers

Shelby and I had to go to Idaho Falls for a funeral on pretty short notice. We decided it would be much easier on everyone if we did not have to take all the kids with us. In the end we took Carson with us, Rachel stayed with her cousin Sam at the Larson's house, and Lilly had a sleepover at my parents' house. Let's start with Carson. In all of his two years he has rarely had one whole hour of two-on-one with Shelby and I, let alone two whole days. Not only did he get our undivided attention, but he got the undivided attention of Grandma, John, Grandma Eileen, and Nathan. He ate it up! I have never seen him so full of personality, and so well-behaved. He did not cry or whine once the whole drive there. In fact I think the only time he complained in the whole two days was just before we left to drive home. We were walking back to the car, which was the last place he wanted to be. He had used up all of his good behavior, but I told him that was fine. He had earned the right to have a little fit.

Lilly had her own undivided attention with my parents. She spent the first evening playing with Papa, and she didn't even have to share him. Apparently before bed he told her he would wake her up early in the morning so they could play before he went to work. Nonna said "don't you dare!" The next day Nonna took her to get her hair done and bought her a new fancy outfit. In the evening she got to spend more time playing with Papa. When we came to collect her she was wearing a jean jumper, pink shirt and pink cowboy boots, and a string of fake pearls Nonna had given her. She looked so cute! She was so excited to see us. She jumped up and down and gave her trademark giggle/squeal.

Rachel was another story altogether. She got nobody's undivided attention, but she did get to spend two days playing with her five Larson cousins. I let the girls pack their own backpacks. I listed the things they needed and went on good faith that they packed it all. Why I did not double check, I am not sure. Summer tells me Rachel's bag was quite toy-heavy, and lacking some clothing items such as pants. You can see where her priorities are. When we came to pick her up, we went to hug and kiss her. She stepped back and said "I need a minute." It was all we could do to pull her away from her cousins. When we asked her if she missed us, she said "I just missed my sister." I suppose I should have been slightly hurt, but mostly I was glad she had been thinking about her sister.

Lilly got to go to a birthday party on Saturday. It was her first solo birthday party, where she wasn't just a tag-a-long with her sister. The party was for her friend Allison Millward. Allison has a sister Rachel's age named Rachel. The girls call her "Rachel Millward". Every time she would tell someone about the birthday party she would say it was a party for "Rachel Millward's sister." Rachel and I walked over to pick her up after the party. We all walked back and Lilly told us all about it. She was delighted with the whole affair. It is good for her to do these things without being in the shadow of her older sister. I am sure there are times she thinks of herself as "Rachel Rayl's sister".

My Noggin

Shelby taught the girls the "Don't step on the crack or you'll break your mamma's back" song. They think it is hilarious. Rachel uses it to tease me, and is always saying, "mo-om, I am stepping on the li-ine." Lilly is a different story. She has her own version of the song that goes "Don't step on the line or you'll break your mamma's noggin." When I am making dinner or doing the dishes I often hear a little gasp, followed by Lilly's admonishment, "Mom! You're stepping on the line!" She takes it a little more seriously than Rachel.

Rachel told me in the car yesterday that when she grows up she wants to marry a police man. Lilly isn't one to be left behind in these conversations, so she quickly decided she would marry a store man. I asked her why she picked a store man, and she said, "because they are good at doing store stuff." She isn't wrong. If she still wants to marry a store man when she is 25, it is OK by me.

A lady in our ward was telling me how much her little boy loves Carson. She said he calls him "the one with the eyebrows". It reminded me of when he was born. That was a comment we got a lot. People would say something like "I have never seen a newborn with eyebrows before!" I can confidently say those eyebrows are the doing of the Rayl genes. Eyebrows and all, he is so cute!

Rachel poked herself in the ear with a Q-tip yesterday. I didn't see it happen, but later that day she complained a lot about her ear hurting. Finally in the evening on the way home from karate, I told her I would give her some Tylenol as soon as we got home. She was having none of it. She insisted on having Shelby "use the special oil" on her head and say a blessing. Apparently she had a primary lesson about it on Sunday.The ear problem was minor, but it seemed like a good opportunity to increase her testimony of Priesthood blessings. Shelby asked Brother Millward to come over and help. I think it was a good experience for Rachel and for Shelby.

Rachel's First Baby-Sitting Gig

Shelby and I wanted to go for a walk around the block on Sunday, and we decided it would be OK if Rachel baby-sat Lilly and Carson. We were only going to be gone for five minutes, and Rachel has been in charge for longer than that before while I shower or Shelby works outside. This was her first home-alone baby-sitting gig, but we thought she was up for it. We were almost home from our walk, and contemplating another lap when in the distance I saw a little girl walking away from our house. "Is that Lilly?" Shelby asked. "I don't know. I think so...what is she doing?" Then a moment later, I noticed Carson was tagging close behind. They were both bare-foot. We caught up to them and asked what was going on. "We was looking for you" Was the only explanation Lilly could give. When we got home, we searched for Rachel to get an answer to why the little ones were outside. We found her in the back yard praying. When we brought her tearful self inside and asked what was going on she explained it. The timer I had set for something had gone off and she thought it was the fire alarm. She did the exact right thing by getting all the kids out of the house, but didn't know where to look for us so she decided to say a prayer. We were so proud of her. Simultaneously, I have never felt so guilty!

Lilly is hilarious. A word that for example's sake I have tried to give up is "suck". You don't realize how crude it is until you hear it come out of your sweet 3-year-old's little mouth. I have discussed with the kids how inappropriate this word is. Alas, I am not perfect and I let the word slip during dinner the other day. Lilly gave us a personal little commentary that I am sure came straight from stream of conscious. "You shouldn't say suck. It's a bad word. You should apologize, but you don't have to. Only if you want to."

My new favorite thing in the whole world is watching my kids play outside together. They get along so well when they are out there. They sometimes spend hours out there digging in the dirt, climbing on things, or just sunning themselves. I don't even mind that they come inside covered from head to toe in dirt. It will be good memories for them.

Birthdays

It has been birthday mania at our house this week. Tuesday was my birthday, and Carson's was yesterday. Rachel gets the whole birthday thing happening only once a year, but Lilly just feels left out. She does not understand why it can't be her turn for a birthday now that Carson and I have had a turn. She knows hers is next, but the fact that her birthday is months away is hard for her to grasp. I think we might have to have a happy 3 1/2 year birthday party for Lilly in a couple of weeks. Carson had no idea what was going on for his birthday. He loved the cake and the presents, but I am pretty sure he doesn't know why he got all of this attention.

Carrington College does free teeth cleaning and dental checkups. Since our insurance doesn't pay for cleanings anymore, I decided to sign the girls up. Of course when you get something for free, you have to expect something to be less than perfect. In this case, the appointments last two and a half hours! The girls went yesterday, and I could not be more proud. That is a long time for a little person to sit in a chair and let someone play with their mouth. Both Rachel and Lilly did great. I spent most of the time with Lilly because it was her first time at the dentist and I thought she might be nervous. Rachel has been before, but never in a setting like this. I could see Rachel from Lilly's chair, and I could tell she was talking the hygienist's ear off. While Lilly got her x-rays, I went to check on Rachel. The conversation went "I thought you was going to stay with Lilly."  "I was, but I thought I would check with you and see how you are doing...do you want me to leave?" Rachel at this point pauses to consider her next comment, I am guessing to decide whether or not she would offend me. Finally she tells me "I want you to leave." I spent the rest of the appointment with Lilly, who was visibly bored, but other than that behaved perfectly. Rachel on the other hand was interested in everything the hygienist did, which was pretty cool considering even I was horribly bored. In the end we had no cavities, and lots of compliments on how cute the girls were and how clean their teeth were.

On my birthday , Shelby surprised me with an ultrasound to determine the sex of the baby. We are having (drum roll please) another baby girl. I am excited, even though it would have been much more convenient to have another boy. I feel bad that Carson won't have a brother, but upon expressing this Rachel corrected me. Carson does have a brother because right now Rachel is a boy. So according to her it is perfect. Her and Carson will be the brothers and Lilly and the new baby will be the sisters.

Grandma Rayl

The girls have been playing house all morning. I have been assigned the guest role of "Grandma". I would probably take this in stride if it weren't for the fact that my 30th birthday is tomorrow. Thus it has been hard on my pride to play the role of Grandma to my children.

I took the kids for a walk on Friday. Both Rachel and Lilly insisted on wearing their flip flops from last Summer. Even though it was kind of cold I let them, mostly because it did seem much easier than tracking down socks. Over the last stretch of the walk, Rachel and Lilly raced home. I should explain that when we bought Lilly her flip flops for a dollar, I did not realize I had bought two left shoes. Also, one of her flip flops keeps falling apart. These two things put her at a disadvantage while running, and about 100 yards from home she bit the dust. She scraped up her nose and lips, but also got a nice little gash on her forehead, which bled pretty good. And we all know how well Lilly handles blood. I was woefully unprepared for this injury, as I had no band aids. What's more, I thought the little gash in her head might need a stitch or two. I hummed and hawed over this for some time and then decided to clean her up and bring her to CCS so Shelby and all other adults could give me their opinion. They were no help. Most were as undecided as I was. In the end, Shelby bought some super glue and glued it up. It looks good as new, and was much cheaper than a trip to the doctor. That resourcefulness is in Shelby's genes. He gets it from his grandmas on both sides!

Carson watched Glee with me last night. I so enjoyed him as a viewing companion. He mostly sat on my lap and let me cuddle him. But every time a song came on, he slipped out of my lap and onto the floor so he could dance along. He was hilarious! I hardly watched the show during these times because Carson's dancing was so entertaining. There must be something innate in kids that age that every time they hear music they want to dance. When Rachel was that age, we were just sure she had some crazy aptitude for music since she responded so passionately to it. Three kids later, it is clear to me that music is something we are all born to love.

Carson and the Big Kid Bed

We have been trying to convert Carson to a big kid bed over the past few nights.  He falls asleep in our bed and then we transfer him to his crib . So far he has done great with it. I thought I would try it for nap time yesterday. I put him down and did not hear another word from him. About an hour later I was in the middle of patting myself on the back for being such a competent mother when I heard someone banging on a door. My first response was to tell Lilly to stop it before she wakes Carson up. But then I realized it was coming from my bedroom. I went in to find the contents of my jewelry box spread out all over the floor. I think he spent about two seconds in my bed before getting up and entertaining himself. So for now, nap time will still be in his crib.

Lilly and I have had a routine for the past couple of weeks. In the morning she gets up and climbs in bed with me so we can cuddle and talk a little before we get up for the day. I love this time, and so does she. The problem is, she has been getting up progressively earlier as the days have gone by. These days she is up quite a bit earlier than I would like to be woken up. At first I just let her climb in anyway, and made her promise to be quiet and hold still so I can sleep a little longer. But no matter how still she tries to be, she is a squirmy thing. This morning she was exceptionally early. I put my foot down and told her to go back to bed, but it broke her heart. I guess I will have to do without those extra 30 minutes of sleep. If you have ever heard Lilly's heart be broken, you will understand why I gave in.

Rachel wants to be a boy. She asked me to give her some boy name choices, and of those I gave her she chose David. The problem was, she kept forgetting her new name. Eventually she got tired of asking me to remind her, and changed her name to Andre. That must not have stuck well because yesterday she asked me if she could just be a boy called Rachel. I would be worried about this little phase if it weren't for the fact that in all other ways she is incredibly girly. Yesterday she got irritated with me because about six months ago I took her to get her hair cut and now she misses her long hair.

Runaway Kitten

I took the kids for a walk the other day around the block. We were on our way home when a little black kitten came running out of the neighbor's yard and right up to us. All three of my kids were thrilled with the kitten and the whole way home tried to convince me to let them keep it. I explained that we already have two cats, and if we got another one dad would likely leave. Rachel's solution to this was to get rid of Jackie (her cat) and keep this one instead. I also explained that the kitten most likely belonged to another family that would be sad if we kept it. This did nothing to convince them since both Rachel and Lilly completely lacked empathy for said family. The kitten followed us all the way home, and I cruelly made it stay outside while I made the girls stay inside. It spent the afternoon mewing outside our sliding glass door. My kids spent the afternoon on the other side of the door doing their own begging. They worked me over good. I knew we couldn't keep the kitten but it was really cute. I also hated telling them no when they wanted it so bad. In the end I took it back to the house where I thought it belonged. Sure enough, that little kitten had two little children who would have been heart broken at losing it. Rachel especially seemed reassured by this information. Still the next day Rachel requested that we go on a walk, and pass the house with the kitten. I am sure this was in hopes of having the kitten follow us again.

Saturday was a beautiful, oddly warm day, and we all spent the afternoon outside doing yard work. While we were working Rachel asked me what would happen if you bought too much food. I was only half listening when I answered "some of the food would go bad." Rachel thought for a minute and asked "you mean like monsters and bad guys?"

Aunt Merry calls Lilly "Lilly-Pants". We call her "Lilly bug". Whenever someone asks Lilly her name she says "Lillian Katelyn (she pronounces Katin) Rayl Bug, and Merry calls me Lilly-Pants." Never mind most of these people do not have a clue who Merry is.