The Gap

Yes, there has been another giant gap between blogs lately, and I apologize. I should learn to take responsibility, but I have yet another excuse. We switched Internet carriers, and it took almost a full week for the new carrier to get in and hook us up. We are up and running now, so here is what you missed.

Last week after church it took forever for us to get out the door to go home because Lilly had to hug half a dozen different young men. Every few steps a boy would call her name and throw his arms open. These are all boys who love Lilly and think she thinks they are her #1. When we got in the car she was all smiles as she told me "those boys were fighting about me!" And so it begins.

Rachel had her second karate tournament on Saturday. She has been practicing and practicing for this one and was very excited. Until we got there. The turnout for this one was much higher than the last, and unlike the last one, the blackbelts got to compete first, which was a little intimidating. After a few of the blackbelts performed Rachel looked up at me with a slightly panicked expression and said "I need more practice!" Her and Shelby stepped out for some last minute practicing, but it was Rachel's turn pretty much right away. She outright, flat-out, emphatically refused to go on. No amount of reassurance, begging, coaxing, and bribing from us, or cheering from the audience would make her change her mind. Rachel cried and cried on the way out to the car. She wanted to perform, but just was too nervous. Her instructor offered to let her come back and compete in the sparring with another student about her age, and after much thought, and a little snack, she decided to give it a go. There were no nerves this time around, and considering that she was unprepared to spar, she did OK. The other girl she was sparring with won, but Rachel got a second place medal (out of two) that she is very proud of.

Carson is still working on his colors. When I ask him about colors he is unsure of he says "Umm...not green". As in, "I don't know what color it is, but I do know it isn't green." He is also full of surprises. I mean that in the sense of him hiding things from me and then yelling "surprise!" I keep telling people I am not potty training him yet because he is still pretty young. Someone asked me how old he was the other day and I said, "Two-and-a-half, but he will be three in February." As soon as I said it, I realized that is less than a month away. All of the sudden my two-year-old is a near three-year-old.

Speaking of kids getting older, you would not believe Emilia. Shelby observed yesterday that she is getting outright chunky. This is so pleasing to me I cannot even tell you. Yesterday she slept for about 3 hours. I was so paranoid that she might be starving to death I had to keep reminding myself that we are no longer needing to worry about her food intake. Now I get to relax and enjoy her!

We have a rule at our house about my shower time. My mom used to have the same rule when we were kids and I thought it was pretty intolerant as a child. I totally get it now. A hot shower all alone is sometimes the only peace I get in a day. So now nobody is allowed in my bathroom while I am in the shower, unless there is an emergency. What I consider an emergency and what the kids consider an emergency are very different. Lilly barged in yesterday and told me "Mom, this IS an emergency!" I said (insert sigh) "OK Lilly, what is the emergency." Hands on hips she said, "Carson is not eating his cereal!" We have now defined an emergency as someone bleeding or unconscious. We also have a "no touching the baby during sacrament meeting" rule. This is another one my mom had when I was a kid that I did not get until now. The problem is, when I am holding Emilia, everyone wants to be right in her face. She is fine with it but I feel totally mauled.

We got a call from our babysitters Saturday night telling us that Lilly was throwing up...again. It seems like we get such a call on date night every couple of months, always involving Lilly. We were just about done with dinner so we headed home. I assumed the incident was a result of Lilly getting over-excited at the prospect of having two of her favorite babysitters on the same night (Ashley O'Brien and Amanda Fackrell). Such things do seem to make her throw up on occasion. But coming home from dropping the sitters off I started feeling a little ill. Thus began our 3-day bout of the stomach flu. Quick riddle, what is to only thing worse than having the stomach flu? The answer is cleaning up kid throw up while you have the stomach flu. I can't complain too much. Shelby handled night duty since he felt fine, and Lilly throws up so frequently that she is a pro about making it to the toilet. Rachel came down with it last night and had some trouble getting to the toilet, but even then she only threw up on hard surfaces. This morning we all woke up feeling great, and I was sure we were out of the woods. I called Shelby on my way to take Rachel to school and guess who isn't feeling very good? Carson and Emilia have remained untouched by this stomach bug, knock on wood.

After Rachel threw up the first time I tucked her into my bed and told her about how much I hated throwing up when I was a kid. I remember coming upstairs to tell my parents that I felt sick. My dad would ask "Are you going to throw up?" Not wanting to admit that I might (because it was just so awful) I would say "No...." and seconds later I would puke anyway, usually all over the floor. Then my dad would say "Aw Katie! For Pete's sake!" I don't think I ever made it to the toilet until I was about ready to leave home. My dad is a good sport when it comes to the worst parts of parenting, but he hated cleaning up after sick kids. Another memory from being sick was that even if we felt we were dying my parents NEVER, EVER let us sleep in their bed. But if we really felt lousy enough, and they were feeling kind, they would let us sleep on the floor of the hall by their closed bedroom door.

Lilly is positively delightful when she is sick. In the midst of throwing up she is usually chipper and talkative. She does milk it though. I think she was over the worst of it by Sunday, but anytime she needed or wanted anything she would come out with "But I'm sick!" This morning while I was making oatmeal (Lilly's very least favorite breakfast) she told me she ought to choose the breakfast because she is sick. I told her if she was really all that sick she would not be able to go to the park with Elizabeth. She said "Well, I am not going to be sick when I am at the park, but I AM going to be sick when I am eating breakfast."

Speaking of Lilly, her fear of dogs has become quite the thing at our house. It does not matter what our destination is, she always asks if there is going to be a dog there. It could be that we are going to someone's house that she has been to a dozen times, or on our way to the grocery store, the question is always the same. "Do they have a dog?" She asks nearly every single time, no exaggeration. This is exactly the opposite of Rachel who wants to take home every dog we come across. Her argument always lies on two things. First, "If we don't take it home, who will take care of him?" Second, "Lilly is not afraid of this dog!"

Family Vacation

We took our first family vacation last weekend as a group of six. It was only to Idaho Falls, but it was a good trial run. We have been incredibly lucky with our kids as far as traveling is concerned. They have all been excellent travelers...until Emilia. I actually can't complain too much. She did well for the first three hours, but lost patience in the final home stretch, both on the way there and the way back. The other kids did well traveling, but their understanding of time and distance was off. Every few minutes they would either ask if we were in Grandma and Grandpa's town or in ours. While we were in Idaho Falls they asked several times if we were home. Before we left IF we stopped at a gas station to fill up and they asked if we were home. Apparently the fact that it had taken hours and hours to get to IF escaped them. Our purpose for the visit was to see Grandpa Lynn and Grandma Cheri. They spoiled the kids rotten (and us too). If it were up to the kids we would have stayed forever. I would like to have stayed longer, but life you know. It is always getting in the way. Cody was there too. Rachel has been holding Emilia a lot, and is pretty good with her. However, if you have never seen her holding Emilia before it can be slightly unsettling. She walks around with her and holds her up to her face. She looks like she lacks control. I thought it was going to give Cody a heart attack. He followed her around with outstretched arms ready to rescue Emmy at any moment.

Carson is learning his colors right now. This is the first time he has been interested in the idea of a variety of colors. At first everything was "green". He has added blue to his list of guesses, and just this morning he proudly recognized orange. I love it when he says orange. It sounds like "urnge". I am also a big fan of the way he says burger. He says it phonetically correct, but draws out the "bur" part so it sounds like "buurerger".  It has an almost Yoda-like quality to it.  On the subject of Carson-speak, one of my other favorites is that he calls all balls "football soccers" except footballs, which he calls "Boise State".

Jackie Cat keeps pooping in our house, so she has been banished to the outdoors. Jackie sort of adopted us a couple of years ago when I left the basement door open for a couple of hours. It was a cold snowy night, and when we got home we discovered her in the basement. She was so stinking fat I thought she was pregnant. So was I, so I could not bear to make her leave. Now, three years later she is still fat and has yet to give birth to any kittens. Nothing cures me of loving an animal like having them poop in my house. Watching her be outside and wanting to come in is just about killing the girls. Especially Lilly. We have explained the problem to them both, but Lilly seems to need to give herself pep talks every now-and-then. When she sees Jackie waiting at the sliding glass door she usually says to nobody in particular, "Jackie wants to come in....but she can't because she poops on the floor."

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.