Keeping busy

I think I've been subconsciously avoiding the stress associated with moving by finding all sorts of convenient excuses not to do anything moving related. This week, I was pretty successful.

See, this last week was my parents' annual week in Park City. I mentioned last time about the bday party on Saturday. But Andrew was so insistent on going back, that we ended up driving up on Monday to spend the day with cousins, and then again on Tuesday to stay until Thursday (my parents had to leave early, thus leaving space for us and our gear in their spot). Jeni and her brood spent the better part of the week up there. Afterwards, we both talked about how much work it had been--parts of it were fun, but definitely our main reason for being there was for the kids, who absolutely loved being somewhere new, playing all the time with each other, going for walks, swimming, etc. In fact, Enoch and Emi both cried when Jeni told them it was time to go--even going so far as telling Jeni that they did *not* want to see their dad; they'd rather stay. Andrew (I think because we hadn't been there as long) was more content with leaving. Certainly, Jeni and I found it interesting to juggle five kids (all under 6) between the two of us (Dan did come up Wednesday night, just for the night, and it was so nice to have an extra pair of adult hands).

On Tuesday, before my parents left, we took all the kids down to the pool. My kids, for some reason, are both fearless; Jeni's kids (Emi and Enoch especially) took a little longer to warm to the water, and neither of them ever really did enjoy being too far away from their mom. Andrew's favorite pasttime quickly became jumping from the side of the pool into the pool, where his life jacket and water wings quickly propelled him back to the surface. (Somewhere I have pictures of this, but since my camera is currently buried in a suitcase, you'll have to wait until later to see them). When it came time to herd all the kids out of the pool, we were lucky that my parents had come down to watch (well, my mom came down to watch and then my dad came down at her insistence to take pictures), since keeping all of the kids away from the pool while we dried them off required more than our four hands (Jeni's and mine). We weren't entirely successful. When Andrew finally got out, I stripped off his life jacket and water wings right away, believing (erroneously, as it turned out), that Andrew wouldn't get back in the pool (which starts out at about 4 ft) without them. However, as soon as my back was turned, Andrew was darting back into the pool. I was partially dressed and holding Evelyn, so I didn't immediately go after him. We all watched for a minute, bemused, as Andrew floundered in the water before Jeni finally said, "He's sinking!" and jumped in after him. I like to think I would have realized eventually that he was sinking, but at the moment, I was more annoyed that he'd disobeyed direct orders. I'd also like to think that his near brush with drowning would frighten him into staying out of the pool when no adults are near him (and he doesn't have safety gear on), but I'm not so sanguine about that either: Andrew seems to think he's a born swimmer. The other day as we drove to the local pool, he asked Evelyn, "Evelyn, are you a really good swimmer like I am?" Apparently, for my sins, Andrew's approach to water is similar to mine at that age--an approach that landed me, at age four, with my first set of stitches in my chin.

We came back Thursday just in time for the second of Evelyn's appointments this week with the ENT (we had to split the appointment since the nurse practitioner who was initially supposed to see her on Tuesday had a family emergency). The nurse, the ENT, and the audiologist all confirmed that Evelyn does need tubes in her ears--apparently she has a significant amount of fluid and pressure in her ears, and it seems to have been there for some time (thus explaining the constantly recurring infections). So we have surgery scheduled for the 14th of July--if you could keep her in your prayers! I know that this is a routine surgery (the most common on small children and one of the least risky), and I also know that it will probably be good for her (fewer infections, less chance of building up resistance to antibiotics, better hearing, better sleeping!!!, etc.), but I still find myself nervous about the idea of putting my baby out with anesthesia, even for just a few minutes.

Friday, I had blithely scheduled to meet up with our friend Kelli (from PA) and her daughter at the veteran's pool, only to look out the window that morning to a downpour (yes, more June rain). Luckily, it cleared up somewhat by that afternoon and we had an enjoyable visit, although it must be confessed that we spent more time running after kids than actually talking. Still, it was lovely to see her and nice to catch up.

And now, after unpacking on Thursday and packing again on Friday, we're in Cedar City once again. Yesterday we had our final walk-through of the house: we close tomorrow--a momentous task that's simultaneously daunting and exciting. By the end of next week, we will officially be homeowners (apparently we don't get the title until after our deposit clears, and the current owners have two days following the transfer of the title to vacate). Dan will be heading back up north, but Andrew, Evelyn and I will stick around to get some things in order for the house and visit with family. (Andrew informed Dan and I on the way down that a "bacation" is "where you go to visit family.")

And so it goes.

Happy Father's Day

It seems to be somewhat de rigeur for a Father's Day blog to offer an enthusiastic encomium of a father you love, but my readers (and most especially Dan) will have to pardon me tonight: I have a migrane, and I fear my prose will be somewhat spare tonight. (Who knows? That may even improve the literary quality. Although I'm afraid I'm not up to Hemingway's hypermasculinized kind of spareness.)

I will say just one thing, though: I think I chose far better than I realized at the time that I married Dan. He has been a wonderful husband and an even better father.

Not much to report from this week. We're still waiting for summer: I can't remember this much rain in June in a long time. We might as well still be in Pennsylvania.

Wednesday I took Andrew and Evelyn to Thanksgiving point where we met some friends from Pennsylvania (now living in SLC): Steph and her two lovely daughters. Andrew and Gabi are old friends, although I doubt either of them remember it--Steph watched Andrew for me when I worked in the writing center at Penn State. They look so grown up now!




That afternoon, I tried to take advantage of the brief window of sunshine and warmth to take Andrew to the pool. Unfortunately, that window was only large enough to get us to the pool--shortly after our arrival the clouds scuttled in and the winds picked up. It was freezing, but Andrew loved it. (I was glad, though, that I had the foresight to leave Evelyn with grandma).

Andrew finally got his moment in the sun on Friday, when Dan took the kids to the pool (where they were joined by approximately half the residents of the valley, all trying to take advantage of the first truly nice day in weeks) while I had a meeting on campus.

Yesterday we drove up to Park City where my parents are on their annual vacation. We celebrated Enoch's birthday and tried to keep the kids occupied indoors, since it was--predictably--raining again. We stopped for shakes at Granny's Drive-In in Heber City on the way back and have to confess that we can see what the fuss is about: the shake we shared was really pretty good.

In other news, the cloth diapering continues apace. Dan still seems hesitant to use them, but I'm starting to get more used to them, and the more I use them the more I like them--it's hard not to like something that's economical, environmentally friendly, and *cute*. Although I could do without the messy ones.

Evelyn updates

This has been a somewhat momentous week for Evelyn. She is slowly but surely moving towards actually walking--at least a couple of times in the last few days she has stood independently (granted, not for more than a second or two--but she was definitely upright on her own for a measurable amount of time).

Another event has more to do with her mom than with Evelyn herself--after being introduced to cloth diapers by a friend of mine, I think we're going to try switching her over. In the long term, we would not only be a little gentler on the planet (which is nice), but this would cost significantly less than disposable diapers. (And for those of you who think that dealing with poopy diapers is significantly grosser--it's not actually that bad. And besides, were you aware that most disposable diapers are also supposed to be dumped out before being disposed of? It's true: it says so right on one of our boxes. Not that I've ever done that.) Anyway, Evelyn will shortly be joining the ranks of the fuzzy bottomed babies.

The final update, unfortunately, is not entirely positive. Evelyn went to the doctor's last week and was diagnosed with yet another ear infection. Since this makes #5 since January, almost all of them in the same ear, we now have an appointment with an ENT next week to talk about getting tubes in her ears. Poor baby. (This might, however, explain her abysmal sleeping habits. At 13 months, she's still waking up an average of two times a night.)

And the rains came down

We haven't done much the last week or so--we should have been luxuriating in summer's warmth, but instead, we've been under a steady stream of wet weather, much more reminiscent of our stint in Pennsylvania than any June I can remember in Utah. As a result, our newly purchased pool pass lies languishing, unused, and we haven't even played outside very much. (I try, normally, not to let wet weather deter us too much form getting outside at least once a day, but Evelyn's been sick on top of everything, and exposing her to wet weather--we come in a linked threesome these days--seems cruel.) We have gone to the park a couple of times--we even got to feed the ducks and see some darling little ducklings. Evelyn's a big fan of the "gucks." We discovered this week that she *does* actually like books--one book in particular, a Baby Einstein book on animals. The first time we read it together, we must have read it five times, because every time I finished it she turned it back to the beginning. She still gets excited every time she sees it. Another animal lover, like her brother (which is funny, because neither of her parents are huge fans).



So we've tried to come up with alternate entertainments. I bought a huge lot of cookie cutters cheap on craigslist, so we took them over to Jeni's on Wednesday and made horse, elephant, rhinoceros, crab, octopus, kangaroo, worm, and other random assorted animal cookies.

Evelyn and Andrew decided to create their own entertainment by scattering my recycling pile all over the room (all the accumulated detritus from a semester of teaching and writing). I guess it's time to actually recycle the pile.

We've been working on helping Evelyn balance herself, preparatory to learning to walk (she's finally figured out that you actually have to move your legs in order to walk with a walker).





We (I mean, I) have been scouting craigslist and other online sites for cheap deals on furniture, seeing as how we'll need to furnish a house shortly and we have (aside from beds) little to no furniture. We thought we'd scored a deal sometime back on an entertainment center (the sellers even offered to deliver it when they moved). We were all set to receive it last Sunday evening, only to have the sellers call and tell us they needed to pay us back--the entertainment center broke when they tried to move it! So I guess it's good we didn't move it ourselves.

This week, I scored a cute little dresser set for a little girl. Then, however, we had to figure out how to transfer it. Luckily, Dan's aunt and uncle were in town and kindly offered us the use of their truck to transport it. It's currently sitting in the garage, where it will stay, pending our move.

We seem to be in a kind of wierd limbo just now--we're ready to move on (even Andrew keeps asking when we're moving), but we're not quite so close to our moving date to start packing full time. So, I've been desultorily packing a few boxes every day or so (mostly books, so far). I've been cleaning out the closet in my old room upstairs, which works out fairly well since there are toys in the room, which keep Andrew and Evelyn occupied while I sort through old letters, papers, etc. It's been a strangely bittersweet process, one that takes me much longer than it should because I keep reading through things as I decide whether to discard or keep. I boxed up my old journals (I kept a journal faithfully all through high school and up until my mission, writing almost every day). I'm a fan of keeping journals--that's part of the reason I blog so regularly--but I'm not such a big fan of re-reading old journals, particularly ones filled with adolescent angst and uncertainty. There's something about hearing my own voice in my head that takes me back fifteen years. Never mind that I'm thirty-something, married, with children and a successful degree. All of a sudden I feel gawky and inadequate. I wish someone could have told me, back then, that I would feel much more comfortable in my own skin as I aged, that my looks would actually improve (I found a bunch of pictures from the end of my mission, after I'd put on 20 lbs and stopped wearing makeup or really doing my hair, and was horrified by how terrible I looked). I suppose I shouldn't feel so sorry for my old self--since, after all, I think I was generally pretty happy, and I wouldn't be who I am today without coming through all that--but I can't reread some of my old journals and letters without cringing, particularly the parts that talk about boys. In some respects I can't believe how naive I was--in others, I have that same kind of reaction (torn between fascination and horror) that I have for television shows and movies where the geeky guy or girl throws him or herself at someone who so obviously would never give them the time of day. It can be pretty painful, reading about all those romantic hopes, and remembering, with sudden, unforgivable clarity, how that particular episode worked out and cringing internally. I'm glad I'm past all that.

I'm also glad that I'm almost done packing up things in that closet, so I don't have to keep reliving unwelcome episodes from the past! Of course, fairness compels me to admit that it isn't all bad--I found my old honors portfolio and it was interesting to see what things I thought were noteworthy from my college career. I found the transcript of the talk I wrote for the honors graduation (boring, but I remember the occasion). I found copies of an essay that won a big essay contest at BYU my senior year, and was actually quite impressed with what I'd written. And I found a handful of old wedding announcements that made me smile to think about the people in them. And, of course, I found the "Cinderella" shoes I wore for my own wedding--one memory from the past that I hope I never forget.

Our little egotist

(I may be the only one who finds these amusing, but since this is *my* blog, I figure it's only fair. And no one says you have to read it!)

Today, Andrew informed me, "I'm smarter than anyone in the world."

"How do you figure?" I asked him.

"I'm really smart."

"Yes, you are smart, but I doubt you're the smarter than everyone," I said.

"No. No one's smarter than me."

Okay, so maybe we don't need to tell him he's "so smart" quite so frequently! (But I have to admit, I envy him his confidence. I'm still not always convinced I'm smart--but maybe that's because I now know enough to know how little I really know.)

Storytelling

It's continually fascinating to me to watch and listen as Andrew makes sense (or not) of his world, piecing together random pieces of information to tell stories. The following story unfolded on the way home from the store just now (NB: for those not in the know, "Grandma Marsha" is what Katie, Jake, and Lydia call their other grandma. I think Andrew's only met her once or twice, and he probably doesn't even remember those occasions.)

Andrew: "One time, my grandma Marsha wasn't wearing her seatbelt and she flew onto the road and got killed. She didn't know she was supposed to wear a seatbelt." (Only it sounds more like "kilt.") "It only takes three days for people to come alive again."

Brief pause while I try to clarify the doctrine of resurrection for a three-year-old. Apparently I wasn't successful, because Andrew resumed with this:

"No, my grandma Marsha came alive in three days. She was just like Jesus. But she was born before Jesus."

watch out world, here I come!

A week of domestic disasters

This week reminds me a little of one of my favorite demotivators: "Every dark cloud has a silver lining, but lightning kills hundreds of people each year who are trying to find it."

To be fair, there has been a fair sprinkling of good things this week, and most of the disasters have turned out well in the end. (There, now I've spoiled the ending for you.)

For starters, the drier broke upstairs, so my parents opted to replace both washer and drier. Not in and of itself a major thing, but in a household of two families, where neither has had the chance to do laundry for nearly two weeks, dirty clothes really pile up. We finally got to do our laundry about Wednesday (my parents were going out of town, so they had laundry priority. Besides, it *is* their house). That's when we noticed that even the clothes that were supposed to be set on "cold" were steaming when they came out of the washer--so we called in the plumber, who arrived on Friday and, after replacing the faucet behind the washer (which was broken, so it's a good thing we called the plumber), told us that the plumbing was backwards--i.e., the "cold" pipe was running hot water. Those two things corrected, the laundry worked fine.

In the meantime, the box for the washing machine has become a favorite play place. (See, silver lining!)

On Monday of this week, I took Evelyn to get her one-year-old pictures. Andrew stayed with Grandma, who was waiting for the delivery of the washing machine. (Incidently, in what to me is great evidence of God's parsimony and efficiency, my mom asked a sister in our ward, currently assigned to one of the poorer areas in Provo as a stake missionary, if she knew anyone who needed a washing machine, intending to donate the old--but still functioning--machine. This sister answered, "no, but let me get back to you after church." Sure enough, someone came up to her at church and asked, "Do you know of anyone with a washing machine they don't need? My family needs one.")

Evelyn's pictures went great--she's such a funny, photogenic little thing--but this turns out to be a not-so-good thing when her mother can't resist her and no one else is there to restrain her when she orders pictures. (In my defense, many of the pictures are going as gifts to grandparents.)

Lest anyone think the week is sounding too tame at this point, that same afternoon, Andrew went diving into the washing machine box and came up wailing. Apparently, he'd smacked his face into something (we still don't know what), and split his frenulum (for those of you who don't know what this is--it's the funny little piece of skin between your lips and your upper gums). He was fine, but no mother likes to see her child with a mouth full of blood.

Luckily, he was easily consoled with a popsicle. Once we wiped all the blood out of his mouth, of course.


On Wednesday, we took advantage of the minor miracle of both Andrew and Evelyn taking good naps--and nice-ish weather--to go to the outdoor pool again. This time, I had the forethought to bring water wings for Andrew and an innertube for Evelyn, and we all had a much better time--it required a lot less energy to keep an eye on Evelyn when she was contained, so I could spend more time watching Andrew, too--and he was less likely to try and swallow the entire pool. Although he still tried a few times. When I asked why he kept putting his face under water, he responded that he was trying to snorkle (that's not the word he used, but that's what he meant).

Friday, we met up with our cousins (Jeni and her kids) at one of the local Michael's. The trip was more or less without incident (barring the usual complaints of kids who are bored and don't want to be in the cart), but it didn't start out that way--we got there a few minutes before Jeni, so I went next door to look at some discount rugs. While there, Andrew began dancing around in evident discomfort and started yelling "poopy, poopy!" Since I knew where the bathroom was in Michael's, I rushed him and Evelyn next door, trying to get them into a cart (the faster to move with) as quickly as possible. You have to picture this in order to get a good sense of how embarrassing this all was for me: the carts are right by the service desk, where people were checking out. Andrew persisted in yelling, loudly, "poopy! It's coming out!" and clutching at his bum. I put Evelyn into the cart and turned around to grab Andrew, only to discover, to my horror, that he had pulled pants and underwear down to his knees. I don't know what he was trying to do, but I pulled them up, rushed him to the bathroom, helped him onto the toilet and very reluctantly put Evelyn on the floor (well, actually I put some clean paper towel on the floor first) and returned to take care of Andrew's trauma. Which was nothing. Apparently he'd tooted with a little fall-out, and that was it. All that drama and nothing to show for it.

On Saturday, we made last-minute arrangements to go hiking with Jeni and Sam and their kids (Andrew could talk of almost nothing else at dinner after he heard about the trip from Jacob, so I asked Jeni if we could invite ourselves along. We had to explain to Andrew at length, however, that hiking was *not* the same thing as camping.) Maybe we should have heeded the warning signs: it started out well enough--we were on time for our rendezvous (we'd been warned that they wouldn't wait for us, which was only fair, considering we invited ourselves!), but then we discovered that our carefully packed bag with breakfast, Evelyn's sippy cup, diapers, camera, etc., had been left home. Jeni kindly gave us some water bottles and breakfast food, and we were off. Andrew loved running along the trail--unfortunately, the trail didn't love him. About fifteen or twenty minutes into the hike, Andrew went sprawling full-length on the trail and came up (for the second time this week), with a mouthful of blood. We wiped the blood and accumulated gravel out with wipes, and Jeni gave him a bandaid for his upper lip (which made him look a bit like a miniature Hitler with a light-brown mustache--too bad we forgot our camera) and we set off again. This time, however, we insisted that Andrew ride in the child's backpack carrier we had with us, while I carried Evelyn in a snugli. Andrew protested fiercly for a while, but eventually was won over to the benefits of hiking without actually doing any work (Dan got to do the actual hiking for him). While things turned out okay, I think we might wait a little longer before trying the hiking again. At least three more weeks, until our annual summer trip to Park City.

After hiking, we came home briefly so I could feed Evelyn and Dan could get some gas, and then headed up to SLC to harrass Sarah and family. Dan coerced Aaron into helping him with the kids, so Sarah and I had a quick hands-free trip to Ikea to check out storage options (i.e., book shelves--we only have a gazillion boxes of books we'll need to put somewhere in our house). We had lunch at Red Robin, and then drove home while our two exhausted children slept in the car. (Poor Evelyn had almost all her naps in the car yesterday--she did take one short nap just before dinner in her crib). But the gods of domestic disaster weren't quite done with us--we had one more disaster just as we were coming home. When I went to get Evelyn out of the car, I discovered that *something* was leaking out of her pants and all over her carseat--apparently her diaper had exploded. I had to change her on the lawn (which she hated--she can't stand the feel of grass) because the thing was too toxic and messy to even attempt carrying inside. When I was done, I threw everything (clothes, diaper, wipes) in the garbage. Yuck.

Today at church we substituted for my parents, teaching the 11-12 year old Primary class. It was actually a pretty pleasant experience, barring the somewhat random comments of one little girl who seems to feel a constant need to draw attention to herself. Other than that, it's been a typical Sunday, right down to the bedtime tantrums. This time, we had a dual chorus going--Andrew cried because I wouldn't go in and hug him, and his crying made Evelyn start crying. Lest I sound like a horrible mother who wouldn't hug her son (believe me, I wanted to!), let me explain. Andrew has recently started this little game that I hate: I offer to give him a hug and a kiss goodnight and he shouts, "no mommy!" and hides under the covers. I'd be offended if I didn't know it was all part of his game. So I make my offer again. And again. Each time explaining that, once I leave the room, I'm not coming back in. Finally, I leave. And sure enough, thirty seconds later he comes barrelling out of the room, crying, "I do want a hug, I do!" But since we're trying to teach Andrew that, once he makes a decision, he has to stick with it (also, we're trying to teach his mommy that she *has* to be consistent with what she tells him), I couldn't back down from what I've said. Anyway, I do hate this, because he always cries, which always makes Evelyn cry, but I don't want to be manipulated. Especially by a three-year-old.

In the meantime, because preparing to move and finishing up a few loose ends at work isn't quite enough to keep me busy, I've embarked on a new hobby: making silk flower hair clips. Here are the results of one night's labors:

At least there are some domestic things that I *can* manage.

Still more Andrew

More of Andrew's funny sayings--these are mostly for the grandparents, who are most likely to appreciate them--and for us (to pull out when Andrew is sixteen or so and needs to be embarrassed.)

Yesterday, on approaching holidays:

"Hooray! Next is Father's Day. And after that is Big Brother's Day! And then Sister's Day. And then it's Everybody's Day."


This morning, on breakfast. Dan offered him some of what we call "German pancakes," and Andrew politely declined (although he ended up eating them anyway.)

"I don't like German. There's too many germs." (Justin, this one is for you!)

Another conversation with Andrew

(Since school ended and I haven't been teaching, it seems like I spend a lot more of my time talkign to Andrew--not surprising, since he's the closest I get to a real conversation most of the time).

Here's a snippet from a conversation on the benefits of drinking milk:

Me: "Drinking milk can help you grow big and strong."

Andrew, with a note of horror in his voice: "But I don't want to grow big and strong!"

Me: "Why not?"

Andrew: "Because then I'd squish my car seat."

I love the logic of a three-year-old mind.

A little risque?

Conversation with Andrew:

"C'mon 'heartbreaker,'" (He was wearing pajamas that said "Heartbreaker"). "Let's go get you dressed."

"I don't want to get dressed. Heartbreakers don't wear clothes."

!!!