This is my last post for tonight. I got strep throat somehow (my hunch is there is a little guy running around my house with sores on his face that are quite likely strep themselves. We shall see). Anyway, I should be sleeping, but I really wanted to make good on my promise to get the blog a little more caught up. I sill have so much catching up to do it’s ridiculous. But I can spend all day tomorrow doing that because… well, I have strep. So I’m going nowhere. With nobody, which means the kids will probably watch a lot of TV. And jump on the trampoline.
And there just might be a little bit of this goofiness -
Scratch that.
There will definitely be lots of this goofiness.
One of my greatest challenges as a mother? Teaching my children how to actually take some things seriously. At least.
At my yearly vision appointment a little over a year ago my eye doctor said I was a little farsighted and that if I was having trouble reading I could wear a light reading prescription.
Which was fascinating, because I had just been thinking about how my head hurts after I read for a long time, and sometimes my vision goes blurry when I am looking at things close up (not just words… like when I’m making PB&J’s… weird, right?).
Well, I showed up at my yearly eye exam this year and he asked if I ever got that prescription filled for the glasses. Umm… nope. But my vision was definitely not getting any better.
So I finally filled the prescription.
And now I have reading glasses (which I am only 50% good about wearing…)
I need to take a picture of myself in the same position as my late brother, Ross, so you can really see the resemblance. I’ve always thought that I looked like Ross more than I look like anyone else in my family (a female version of him, I’ll say).
A few weeks before Christmas I was working on several Christmas projects downstairs in the basement. That means my sewing machine, countless buttons, spools of ribbons, yarn, rick rack and the like were laying out in the open on my sewing table.
I’m pretty sure we were getting ready for dinner (it was in the evening) and I thought “I should probably put away my sewing stuff downstairs.” But we were busy, so I didn’t. Later, it was awful quiet downstairs, so I headed down to check on the kids.
Bags of buttons had been opened and strewn about the room, balls of yarn had been cut into tiny pieces. The sewing machine was off, but there were pieces of felt and rick rack shoved in the foot under the needle. I took a deep breath, tried not to freak out, and sent the kids upstairs so that I could clean up.
As I was picking up pieces of yarn and moving sheets of felt off the ground I saw it.
Clumps of precious, blonde, wispy, Joseline baby hair.
“Nooooo!!!”
I grabbed the hair and ran upstairs to assess the damage (which I hadn’t noticed before – probably due to the panic I had been experiencing).
At first I only noticed her pony tail (she pretty much cut the pony tail right off). It was only later after brushing out her hair that I found that she had scalped herself in the front.
A friend of mine had a similar experience and said she took her daughter to one of those cheap cut places to fix it, and they made it worse. Not wanting to make things any worse (could they even get worse?) we went straight to Cookie Cutters in South Jordan the next morning and begged them to repair the damage as much as they could.
They couldn’t do a whole lot for the bangs (we just stuck with headbands for a while), but the stories they told of kids who had done worse made me feel worlds better.
Everyone who hears about her cutting her hair has the same things to tell me, “Every kid does it at least once.” “Now she’s officially a little girl.”
Or they tell me their horror stories.
Which really do make me feel better.
At least she didn’t take the clippers down the middle of her head.
After one miserably failed attempt at whole wheat bread today (I forgot to put all the flour in – so it was… less than desirable), I am trying again, but I think I miscounted and still put not-quite-enough flour in the dough. I think that I am overly cautious trying not to use too much flour that I use too little. And I am certain I don’t knead the bread enough.
If tomorrow weren’t Sunday (and if I had more milk) I would try again. Perhaps I will a try a recipe that just uses water – just to see if I can ever get the dang thing to be tall enough.
One of my concerns is that perhaps there isn’t enough dough to fill the pans (i.e., my pans are too big) But I use the same size pans my sister used, and she got hers to rise tall…
I also read that letting the bread rest between mixing it up and kneading it (autolyse?) can help it rise tall, so next time I am going to try that.
I’m feeling a little bit like a failure today… two ruined batches of bread (when I am making the bread in the first place to stretch our grocery budget this month), I lost my patience with the kiddos, it’s 7:36pm and they still aren’t in bed, I lost my patience with my sweet husband, I haven’t prepared my Relief Society lesson for tomorrow, and I didn’t get a load of laundry started this morning. In order to accomplish everything I would like to accomplish tonight, it will require me staying up too late (which I hate doing on Saturday night – I like to be well rested on Sunday! Plus, the choir is singing tomorrow, so that means choir practice before church…)
On a brighter note, we took back our cable box today (no more TV! Yay!) and set up our internet and home phone service with Qwest to start in a few weeks (saving us a LOT of money). So that’s good, right?
I also wanted to blog more, but my blogging marathon will have to wait until tomorrow (unless I decide to sleep tomorrow because I stay up too late tonight…)
This weekend was a big one for us! Friday night was the military ball, Saturday was Governor’s Day, Sunday was my first day teaching Relief Society in our new ward, and Monday is the E4-E5 promotion board!
The military ball will get it’s own post, and maybe I’ll post over on My Soul Delighteth about teaching Relief Society.
Saturday morning Russ had to be at formation at Camp Williams at 0700 (for those of you who don’t speak military, that’s 7:00 am – and we live about 20-30 min away from Camp Williams, depending on traffic). We had stayed at the ball until about 2300 (again, that’s 11:00pm) dancing to Article 15 (the UT National Guard’s band). So we didn’t get home until around midnight. I don’t even remember what time Russ got out of bed, but I don’t think he left until around 0630. I won’t ask him how fast he drove (he took his motorcycle) but he ended up getting there on time.
On time for some waiting. They had a formation at 0700 and then released every body until they had to form up again around 0930 for the parade. If you are unfamiliar with the Army (or the military in general) their motto is “Hurry up and wait.” You might think that it is “Army of one” or some such nonsense, but it really is “Hurry up and wait.” That’s what they always do. Form up and then wait for forever for nothing. Or something. But they have to wait. Wait wait wait wait. But you better be on time to wait.
I didn’t get to Camp Williams until about 1005, a few minutes after the parade started, but I think all we missed was a prayer and maybe the national anthem or something. We got there just as Governor Hubert was speaking. We had to park all the way in the farthest north corner of Camp Williams, but the army was cool and picked us up with a van and dropped us off right by the parade. On our way down to the parade grounds three C-130s did a fly over. They were pretty close to the ground, and the kids got a kick out of it (Joseline thought it was a little loud).
We got to the parade grounds and found a seat just about in time to watch the soldiers parade around.
Now, a military parade is not like a Fourth of July parade or a Homecoming parade. Basically the soldiers form up with their companies and in their units, and in their battalions, and they march past the Governor and salute him so he can “inspect” them. I’m sure he doesn’t really do much inspecting. He probably just smiles and looks pretty for the cameras. Mostly a military parade is just for show – but it is a cool show, and a powerful representation of our military. There were so many troops there. It was the entire Utah National Guard – Army and Air Guard. It was crazy. The Guard also had three Black Hawks fly over during part of the parade (just before the Air Guard marched by, I believe). The kids loved that, too.
I didn’t get a good picture of Russ because I was too busy trying to point him out to Vincente. By the time I remembered that I need to take pictures, I had to take them of the back of his head.
Russ was the third from the front on the second row. You can see his beret where the arrow is pointing.
The band was great, and the soldiers looked fabulous.
After the “parade” they had a fair type thing where all the units and battalions sold food and the Guard put up a zip line and a bounce house. They also had a lot of booths advertising all of the services the military has for families. I signed up for the FRG for our unit, talked to some Military OneSource folks, and got information on the local Family Assistance Center. We also signed up for the Enlisted Association of the National Guard. Apparently they are the people who lobby our politicians to keep the benefits for the Guard soldiers.
They also had an Apache helicopter and a Black Hawk medic helicopter the kids could get around, touch, and (for the Black Hawk) get in. The Apache folks were a little more touchy about the kids getting in the cockpits – but I think that’s because Apaches have guns, and the Black Hawk didn’t. The pilots were all really nice and talked to us about their helicopters.
Vincente loved being the helicopters and decided that he is going to join the army and fly helicopters when he gets “big like Papai.” Cute kid. I told Russ that I secretly hope that Vincente will join the National Guard when he is old enough. No matter what else he chooses to do for a career, I would absolutely love for him to be a citizen-soldier!
The last thing we did was head over to the 19th Special Forces Group’s tent where Vince tried his hand at a paintball gun. He was actually doing pretty well. He was aiming. Russ said Vince couldn’t figure out just how to use the scoping bars (or whatever Russ called them) because he was consistently hitting the wrong spot so he probably had the target through part of the scope and not the whole thing. Anyway, after hitting a few targets and some unsuccessful attempts at shooting the rest he told Russ he was done, so Russ finished out – left handed. And of course took each one out in one shot.
Joseline mostly sat in her stroller and enjoyed a cookie. She tried the bouncy obstacle course but ended up getting stuck. She liked the helicopter, but I think what she liked most of all was being with Papai. She’s super attached to that guy.
Are you ready for a bunch of lame excuses for why I haven’t been blogging here lately? Okay, here goes.
1.) I have been spending a lot of time on my other blogs, particularly My Soul Delighteth – because I love reading the scriptures, mostly. But partly because I am lazy, and also because it is hard to write about my boring, sometimes really hard life, especially when I could just write about how much I love the gospel instead.
2.) Life has been hard. It has been up and down, like most people’s live are, but our downs are really really really far down. And I don’t like that. I like normal ups and downs – not normal ups and depressingly horrible downs. Thankfully we can fix the horrible downs, and we’re working on it.
3.) These little stinkers take up a lot of time – and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love them, I love being with them, and I love teaching them about our Savior and this beautiful world.
4.) We’ve been doing a little bit of vacationing this summer (I will post about these trips, I promise… it might just be in a few months. Ha ha, no just kidding. I will be caught up by my birthday – promise). We drove to the top of a 14,000 ft tall mountain in Denver. Mt. Evans. It was beautiful and I gained a new appreciation for the beauty that is in this world. And for my son’s … fearlessness. Seriously. It was like the kid wanted to jump off the side of the mountain. As if that would actually be fun. Something about the thin air and all the rocks must have set him off. (PS We did a bunch of other stuff in Denver, too – stay tuned for a cool post complete with pictures!)
5.) Then there was a camping trip with our old friends from Monterey – Gabe and Noah – and Russ’ little brother, Jordan. The kids had so much fun. I’m amazed none of them got eaten by bears. Just kidding. But they kept running off into the woods (of course). It was a ward campout with our neighborhood ward and it was really nice to get to meet a lot of them, especially since we recently made the decision to start attending our neighborhood ward. (more about that later, too…)
6.) And then we spent a week in Puerto Rico. It was like a second honeymoon. And fabulous.
Maybe they aren’t so lame excuses. We did have a lot of fun this summer! I can’t believe it’s already September!
Well, between now and the end of September I hope to get caught up on all the blogging. It’s going to be crazy, but I think I can do it!
In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed my readers’ digest version of the summer.
Last time Russ and I went “away” without the kids was when Joseline was about 5 months old and my sister (thanks, Sisty!) flew out to CA and watched the kiddos so we could go on a military marriage retreat in Santa Cruz. Scratch that – we did spend a night in a resort hotel in Tucson, AZ last summer. But that was just one night, and we didn’t do anything really spectacular. Santa Cruz was the last REAL vacation. And that was over two years ago.
We were definitely overdue for a vacation.
My flight got in to Puerto Rico on Tuesday morning at 2:30 am. Russ picked me up, took me back to the hotel, we slept for a while, then he left for class around 8 am. And I kept sleeping. In fact, I slept until noon. It was crazy! Then I got up, ate some cereal, and put on my running clothes. I had a great run on the beach, it wasn’t too warm because of Hurricane Irene, and it was overcast. The sand was pretty wet, too, so it wasn’t as hard to run on the wet, packed sand.
After my run, I showered quickly and Russ took me out to a market where he bought me a few dresses! I’ll have to take pictures when we go out dancing. The hotel has live salsa music in the lobby on Wed-Sat, and free Salsa lessons on Thursday nights. Guess where we’re going to be tomorrow night? I love dancing!
Shopping was fun, even though we had to drive back to the hotel in a flash flood (I have NEVER seen such horrible traffic!! Peurto Ricans are probably the worst drivers in the world). Plus half the street lights were out (they are still trying to fix power outages from the hurricane – although one store we went to said that their power outage had nothing to do with the hurricane. Sometime their power just goes out for no reason… What?)
So after we braved the floods in the little rental Kia, we decided we were starving (all the food places at the market had been closed – probably because of the power outages) but the only place open near the hotel was Burger King. Against my better judgment, I had a burger and fries. The fries were probably the worst idea yet. But i think today is better.
After that, we came back to the hotel and I switched my flights (effortlessly, might I add – Southwest and JetBlue… how do I love thee?) and talked about the things I had learned at Education Week last week at BYU. Russ also napped for a while, since he hadn’t slept in until noon.
Then Russ’ buddy’s wife, Luzmary, flew in and we met them at Casa Dante for some delicious churrasco and monfongo. The meat melted in your mouth – it was even better than the Brazillian style churrasco at Rodizio’s/Tucanos (which I thought was some of the best grilled beef EVER). It was a fun experience to try the monfongo, and it was actually really good. It was a different flavor and texture than I had ever really had, but was kind of like a potato stuffing? Something like that. I will definitely have some more of that before we go home. And maybe some more of that steak stuff. If anyone has food recommendations for Puerto Rico, let me know. I love eating locally when I am traveling (instead of Burger King… which wouldn't have been my first choice, except no one else was open.
After dinner we went in the hotel hot tub for a while (hot tubbing under palm trees? Yes please). Today I would like to try out the little “in-pool” bar. Virgin, of course. But it just looks like so much fun! After the hot tub we went out and walked down the beach. I would like to say we walked in the moonlight, but it was still mostly overcast, so it was more like a walk in the dark. A few stars were out, and the ocean was pretty calm. It was really nice. And the water was so warm. A HUGE difference from that freezing cold beach in Monterey, CA. After the walk down the beach, we sat on a hammock on the beach and talked some more. Talking feels so good, and I feel like we haven’t been able to talk much in the last year or so. Things have been so stressful, and I think that we have been holding a lot in. It’s great to be able to reconnect away from everything.
Oh, and on our way back to the hotel we stopped at a little local grocery story and I bought some locally grown produce! A star fruit (which I couldn’t resist and ate in the car on the way home!), some bananas, and a mango. I ate one of the bananas for breakfast, and the mango I’ll probably eat later. Russ bought me an avocado which I plan on eating today for lunch. It is HUGE. I’ll probably have to share it with him.
Today we’re going to Old San Juan, so hopefully I’ll have lots of pictures for my next post. Right now all I’ve got are pictures of the view from our hotel room (on the top floor!)
I forgot to take my camera out with us yesterday, but I’m remembering today!
Check back tomorrow for more pictures!
I was doing about this same thing – fighting tears (not putting up a very good fight, I should add…) and mourning the passing of my oldest brother – my hero, my idol, the man I wished desperately that I could have better understood. How I wished I could have known how he felt about him, and how I wished I could adequately express my love for him.
I don’t know if he knew. But I hope he knows now.
Ironically, on this day a year ago, Russ was also gone for the military, and I mourned my brother alone. Today, he is also gone on a military assignment, and I am yet again alone in my sorrow.
But not entirely alone.
My family remembers him this day, and I am sure there are more tears that just mine as we remember, painfully, the day our brother, son, husband, and friend was taken from us so quickly.
There are so many questions. Not nearly enough answers.
And time goes on, life goes on, nothing is the same for long. Even the pain is not as sharp as it was a year ago, and yet it is still there, surfacing every now and then to puncture my careless days.
My dad made a tribute video for Ross and I want to share it here.
And now, I just want to repost what I wrote a year ago, because I feel like if I don’t keep reading it and telling it, I will forget. I wish that I had more memories with and about Ross. I feel like they slip so easily through my fingertips. And I am left with a gaping hole in my heart where those memories should be warming my soul.
My Post from a year ago, today:
Ross Richard Werner passed away Saturday, August 14, 2010 in the presence of his wife Jane, father, sister Christy, brother-in-law Adam, and other friends and family. His passing leaves a very large hole in my heart, and I am aching with the desire to say more, do more, and be more to and for him.
I am actually writing this on Friday, August 6, 2010.
Two weeks before it will post.
I’m not ready to face what is coming, and so... like anyone else, I’m denying it will happen, and pretending it won’t, until it’s too late.
Yesterday we talked with my oldest brother, Ross, on Skype.
He beat brain tumors and swelling from a fall, and is getting stronger every day in rehab.
Meanwhile, the tumors in his chest are growing and growing.
The doctors have given him a timeline – weeks, maybe a few months.
Probably more like weeks.
They gave him a choice to do some more chemo, but it won’t help, they say.
So, I’ve booked a flight to Seattle to see my brother. Probably for the last time.
I would like to tell you my story about my brother.
Ross
from my perspective
Growing up, I loved my brother. I wanted to be just like him. I wanted his stuff. I wanted his friends. I wanted his talents (he is so talented!). In fact, when I started junior high – I wanted to even dress just like him. Big baggy pants and big baggy shirts (what was I thinking? I got a little smarter the next year, and realized that I could be like my brother without sacrificing fashion).
Ross played the violin. Really well. I wanted to play the violin just as well as him. So I practiced every day until my fingers were raw. I even tried to get into the BYU Music School. No one made me love music more than Ross (except maybe my mother – but he got it from her, too). Ross played the piano. Really well. I wanted to play the piano really well, too. I didn’t practice all the time. Piano and I have never really gotten along, as far as practicing-to-get-good goes. But I do enjoy playing. Then Ross learned how to play the guitar and got good. I wanted to play the guitar, too. So I practiced every now and then.
Ross was great with computers. He even taught me about RAM once when I was in high school, or maybe college. He showed me how to install new RAM in a computer. I developed a new level of admiration for my brother. He is so smart! My interest in computers at all is because of Ross. I wanted to learn some programming languages. I wanted to learn how to build my own websites. I wanted to learn how to fix computers and mess with them and stuff. I even wanted to learn how to use Linux (which I did, sort of, for a while... but then I got lazy... er, had kids).
Ross loves to read. He loves music. He loves to learn. He loves to play games (my love of European board games? From Ross). My love of reading? Ross. My intense desire to Google anything that I don’t understand? Ross.
Probably the only things Ross didn’t inspire me to do is read my scriptures, pray regularly, run, and eat healthy. That was Janie (his wife).
I hold him on this pedestal (and Janie goes right beside him on it). And I don’t think he knows that. Really, all I want to be I want to be because of my brother. Because he is such a great example of hard work, honesty, learning, knowledge, having fun, and being a good person.
I plan on telling him all these things (and more) when I get to see him in person.
On Sunday I found an 11am ward meeting and took the kids. In all of my careful packing I had completely spaced bringing any of our church stuff. No books, no crayons, nothing. I did have a few toys, so I brought them hoping we could get through sacrament meeting without too much trouble. Apparently that was too much to ask of my travel weary children. They fought and screamed so much I had just about decided to leave church altogether when a really nice sister from the ward caught me as I was getting the kids into the car. She introduced herself and asked if she could help. I was in tears I was so frustrated. She offered to sit outside in the grass with Vincente so I could go in an listen to the meeting. My tears changed to tears of gratitude. She was so sweet. She even got Vincente ready for Primary and helped me find the class. I can’t for the life of me remember her name. I should have written it down somewhere! I felt really loved by Heavenly Father that day. He basically sent me an angel.
After church we went back to the hotel and met up with Meg (Geoff had left already) to have lunch and then head to the temple in Littleton. I had been trying to think of things to do while we were traveling that would help us keep the Sabbath day holy. Church took a good 4 hours, and a trip to see the temple grounds would be another couple of hours, then we could watch a Church video and have dinner and the kids would be ready for bed! It was a perfect plan, and other than the slight hang up at Church (which ended up with a beautiful blessing) Sunday was a perfect day.
It was fun to take Megann to the temple. She didn’t know much about the temples, so before we left I told her a few things and showed her the Church temple website and some pictures of both the inside and outside of the temple. On the drive to the temple I got to talk to her a little more about the temple and share my testimony of the temple. I love going to the temple. Even just being on the grounds feels really special to me. It melts my heart to see my children eagerly looking out the window trying to see the angel Moroni at the top of the temple as we got closer to it. I love that they love the temple so much. It was fun to find a new temple to visit.
There was a family of little bunnies hopping around the temple grounds. The kids got a kick out of that. The bunnies weren’t nearly as fond of the kids as the kids were of the bunnies.
We took some pictures at the temple and then headed back to the hotel and watched The Testaments: Of One Fold and One Shepherd (a movie that always makes me cry and is highly recommended – you can buy it here).
But if you have a husband like mine, you know that the budget thing has to be really simple, fool-proof, and funds have to be protected. I’m not saying Russ is a frivolous spender, because he isn’t, but his idea of budgeting is “Do we have money in our account? Okay, then let’s go spend it.”
We have tried every method of budgeting (it seems like it, anyway!).
Don’t believe me? Since we got married we’ve tried:
- a paper spreadsheet printed out each month - this book, Debt-Free on Any Income (which came with a CD rom of lots of fun spreadsheets) - The Church’s “One for the Money” book complete with budgets, get-out-of-debt plans, etc. - Quicken (too complicated, and too many features) - Budget Map (actually a really cool idea, but it wouldn’t work with one checking account and one spouse who would never write anything down…) - mvelopes (an online envelope system that really worked for a while, but cost us every month… how’s that for counter productive!) - Budget (a program from Snowmint CS, which was actually pretty useful, too, but not as “automated” as mvelopes, and since we were moving from mvelopes to this program, it was just too much work). - Dave Ramsey’s “Deluxe Envelope System” – which would be great if Russ was doing the shopping, but I spend cash way too easily (easier than using my debit card, if you can believe it)
All the trial and error was actually pretty good because we discovered a lot of things about our money habits: 1.) We don’t like to keep track of every single tiny purchase. We are not normally frivolous spenders, we have a pretty good grasp of “need” and “want” and we don’t spend emotionally. We get what we need, and leave what we don’t. We eat whole, natural foods, so we don’t buy crap at the grocery store. We don’t like keeping pieces of paper around, and we don’t like writing stuff down. 2.) I am not good at using cash. Russ is really great at it. If I give him a bunch of cash, he’ll end up with almost as much cash a month later. He seriously doesn’t spend cash. If you give me cash, I’ll spend it all at once instead of rationing. And then I don’t have any more cash, and I can’t get the things we need, because I spent all my cash. I guess I feel like because cash is “untraceable” I can spend it on whatever, instead of on things we actually need. 3.) We like to have all our bills automated. 4.) When we have less money, we spend less money. 5.) I like to plan out every dollar for the month, but Russ likes to have a large “slush” fund (which he usually does not use).
So, after trying every different budgeting method under the sun, we’ve finally found a process we think will work for us:
First, we use my own budget I made up (based off the mvelopes budget that I absolute LOVED). It is just a spreadsheet, but it is crazy powerful and really helps us give every dollar a name. It checks our sums in three different ways, so we can always tell how we need to move things around to make the budget work. In one document, we can do our monthly budget, and budget each paycheck. It’s pretty awesome, if you ask me.
Second, we added a feature to our budget (which isn’t in the one I posted publicly, but I will update it soon) – we’ve color coded the line items. Bills that need to be paid are highlighted in yellow. Bills that have been paid or are pending in the checking account are marked with green. Once the money clears our checking account, we change the color to red. That way, if we’re wondering why there is extra money in our account, we can usually just check the budget. This is a great recording system for us.
Third, we recently added yet another feature to the budget because when our discretionary spending is mixed in the same checking account as our “bills” money, we sometimes end up spending that money.
Remember Russ’ method of “budgeting”? If there’s money in the account, we can spend it! So we decided to open a second checking account for our “discretionary” spending. This is all spending that isn’t programmed, automatic, or regular. Grocery money goes in this account, gas money, spending money, etc (it all goes in there because half the time we are “stealing” money from one category to use in another, which doesn’t bug us, as long as we eat and Russ can get to work). The only drawback to this was that we would probably spend all the money in the account right up front (remember me with the cash? I’m not that much better with the debit card). So instead of putting all the money from each paycheck in there, we set the budget spreadsheet up to calculate all the “descretionary” items each month, and divide that by 30, then multiply by 7, and that is how much money we transfer to the second checking account each Monday for four Mondays.
We’re still working out the math, but the idea behind this system is that we create “artificial scarcity” with our money. We “have” less money, so we spend less money.
It has taken five long years, but we finally have a budget system that is going to work for our family. And it doesn’t involve me spending several hours a day recording bank transactions, balancing checkbooks, and checking online accounts. It should be seamless and only require us to address the budget twice a month before pay day, and any time we need an emergency budget meeting.
Which means more time to hang out with the babies, blog, and live life.
Russ was laying with Vincente tonight at bedtime. Here’s how the conversation went:
Vincente: “Papai, you’re superly awesome.” Papai: “You’re superly awesome, too.” … Papai: “Papai’s going to the other side of the world for a little bit.” Vincente: “There’s lots of water over there so you can’t go over there.” Papai: “Papai’s going to fly over the water in an airplane to some more land.” Vincente: “Oh.” (Joseline makes a ruckus) Vincente: “Joseline’s really silly, huh?” Papai: “Yeah, she’s like Mamãe.” Vincente: “Yeah, Mamãe’s silly, but a little smart, too.” Papai: “Like you.” Vincente: “No. I’m a lot smart. I’m a lot of smart than you. I’m superly smart.” Papai: “You are superly smart.” (trying to suppress the laughter)
Earlier Vincente and Joseline had been coloring in a Portuguese preschool workbook. Russ mentioned that Vincente doing the workbook pages must have boosted his confidence a little.
I had an epiphany the other day. Let me catch you up on a few things, first.
Things have been crazy here. Sometimes good crazy, sometimes bad crazy. I feel like I’m always writing that on here – my life is crazy. Well, it is.
And I have been struggling a lot with feeling like I am doing a much as possible in the day. Most days I get to bedtime and I wonder where on earth the day went, and how on earth I didn’t get the laundry done, the dishes washed, and the bathrooms spotless. Because I stay home all day, and don’t have any obligations outside of my family, I feel like I should be able to be super mom at home – super spotless house, great meals cooked, clean laundry folded and put away, not to mention spending hours playing with my children, reading to them, and going places with them.
Well, here was my epiphany. There are not that many hours in a day, and when most of them are punctuated by unexpected messes, potty accidents, and children fighting, they seem to get used up a lot faster.
I have always tried not to have too high of expectations for a clean house and home cooked meals because two small, very high energy children (if you know my kids, you know what I mean – touch touch touch touch, fight fight fight, talk talk talk talk talk, sound effects sound effects sound effects… it never ends. Seriously) make doing all that very hard, and I don’t want to spend my children’s entire childhood cleaning the house. I’d rather play with them, and the other stuff can wait. Sure I can teach them to clean with me – but honestly, that doesn’t really get stuff any cleaner because they make a bigger mess than they fix. But like I said, I’d rather do things with them and have a little bit dirty house because “babies don’t keep.”
Back to my epiphany (that was only part of it) – I went though in my head what my day looks like. I wake up around 5:30 or 6 (on good mornings – i.e., when Russ hasn’t kept me up all night watching TV shows or movies or talking), so that I can have a few hours (usually only one) to myself to prepare for the day – I usually spend this time reading the scriptures and writing on my scripture blog. Then the kids wake up and I feed them breakfast around 7:30 or 8. By 9am I have cleaned up breakfast, and have the kids dressed and ready for the day. Then around noon, we eat lunch, then we read together and I put the kids down for naps around 2pm. By the time Joseline wakes up (and Vincente, if he even napped) we eat dinner, and then it’s time for bed. So, If you look at things this way, the only time I have to do much of anything is in the morning, for about 3 hours. Sure I have nap time, and I do a few things, but I don’t really like to spend my kids’ down time doing things I could do when they are awake, like cleaning. I prefer to do things I can’t do when they are awake – like reading a good book, writing, or taking a quick nap, myself.
Sure, things will change as my children (and our family) grow, but right now this is how it is, and I think that if I can keep realistic expectations – that is, be okay with only having essentially 3 hours in the day to get things done, then I should be fine. In fact, the reason I’ve been doing so much better the past several days is because I have been okay with it, and I’ve been planning my days better to take advantage of those few hours. And I’m much happier.
When I am feeling down for not keeping the house spotless, my dad reminds me of this poem:
Mother, O Mother, come shake out your cloth, Empty the dustpan, poison the moth, Hang out the washing, make up the bed, Sew on a button and butter the bread.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking? She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.
Oh, I’ve grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue, Lullabye, rockabye, lullabye loo. Dishes are waiting and bills are past due Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo
The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew And out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo But I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo Look! Aren’t his eyes the most wonderful hue? Lullabye, rockaby lullabye loo.
The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow But children grow up as I’ve learned to my sorrow. So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep! I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.
(“Song for a Fifth Child” by Ruth Hulbert Hamilton, Ladies’ Home Journal October 1985)
Potty training is (almost) officially done. In basically one day. She still hasn’t pooped in the potty (she’s done it twice in her undies) but I think that is just a matter of me paying better attention, and her getting used to doing it on the potty. It’s a lot of new stuff for one stinker to learn! And she’s done SO well!
We’re doing the potty-every-half-hour routine, and so far she’ll go right away by herself to the potty and go pee. Her diaper was dry when she woke up this morning, and she went pee right away in the potty. She’s been dry all day (she doesn’t pee when she poops, and I think that is part of why it’s hard for her to learn to poo in the potty – she used to poop in a perfectly dry diaper before we started potty training).
I’m so grateful that it was so easy. I feel like I can go back to life as normal again. Things are going to get better. I know it.
PS – the kids are so entertained in this picture because I took it with the webcam and they could see themselves on the computer screen. They thought that was hilarious. I LOVE these babies!!
We originally started with Joseline back in February, but she was too stubborn (and I too impatient) for it to work. Maybe if had been more patient.... Anyway, the important part is that we had brains enough to stop. And then life happened (a LOT) and we had brains enough to know we should wait until things got a little less crazy (that is, we waited until I got a little less crazy - but that is another story entirely).
Now we're back at it - and we decided to do it kind of randomly yesterday.
So far (about and hour and a half) we're already to the timer phase - I set the timer for 10 min (I started with 15, but after she went to the potty herself(!) once before the timer rang I shortened the intervals to 10 min just to make sure it wasn't a fluke). I think she just wanted a cookie...
No accidents (yet - I'm prepared for it to happen, but crossing my fingers that it doesn't).
This second time around has been easier than Vincente ever was!
Russ was the third from the front on the second row. 
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useful, too, but not as “automated” as mvelopes, and since we were moving from mvelopes to this program, it was just too much work).
