Counting Your Blessings

Here's a funny coincidence, I don't care for snow, but one of my favorite Christmas movies is White Christmas. It's not the winter weather that I love about the movie, it's the music (and Danny Kaye, of course). And really, I want to focus on counting my blessings this year instead of worrying about who's getting what under the tree.

I'm making a goal for this Christmas season:

I will spend more time focusing on the Savior and my family, the greatest blessings I have, than I will shopping for gifts that people probably don't really want anyway.

How do you keep your focus on the Savior during Christmas?

Rhapsody

During the course of this last illness, we introduced the boys to the Muppets. While watching Muppets From Space (not my favorite, but The Great Muppet Caper and A Muppet Christmas Carol were unavailable) Bryan told me that he identifies the most with Animal. Huh. Is it because Animal is the drummer? Perhaps because they have the same hair in the mornings? I'm not sure.

Perhaps it was our recent Muppet exposure that made this music video extra delightful. Or maybe it's the naturally occurring awesomeness of the Muppets shining through. You decide.



Happy Black Friday everyone.

Giving Thanks

Today I am thankful for:

• Bryan's patience and voice of calm. I often call him at work during the day. Sometimes it just helps to talk to someone who's not screaming at you, you know? Bryan has a wonderful knack for keeping me sane, and often making me laugh when I thought I was going to cry. I think he's swell.
  
• Peter's ability to articulate what he's thinking and feeling. The other day he looked at me and said, "You know what? I love you." I'm continually amazed at his intellect and his ability to learn new things.
• Cooper's snuggliness. (No, that's not really a word.) He loves to be held. He loves to give hugs. I remember that for a long time when you asked Peter for a hug he would back into you and wait. When I ask Cooper for a hug he walks toward me with arms wide open. I love it.
  

I'm going to spend the day giving thanks. And maybe I'll eat some turkey too.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Easy As 1-2-3

Cooper is a genius. I know all parents think their kids are smart, but it's true in my case. Proof:

Me: (counting my stitches last night as I crocheted) One

Cooper: Du

Me: (looking at Cooper, trying to figure out if he just said two) Two

Cooper: Dee

Me: (certain that he just said three) Three! Hurray Cooper!

So there you go, Cooper is 20-months-old and he can count to three. I know that there are kids his age that can already read, but I'm counting this as a win.

Girls in White Dresses

I unraveled another project last night. (Stinking gauge...) Maybe I'll just send everyone a skein of yarn for Christmas and tell them to be creative.

Speaking of creativity, I'm throwing a bridal shower this weekend for my fabulous sister-in-law. I've got all the food assignments handed out and have people in charge of the activities, which basically leaves me with the task of decorating. We're having the shower at Bryan's aunt's gorgeous home, so really, my job should be pretty easy.

Except that I've decorator's block. Our theme is "My Favorite Things" and the only thing I've thought of so far is to have pictures of the happy couple for people to peruse. I'm using this post as a brainstorming session: what else could I use to decorate that would fit the theme?

I'd like to go for a less-is-more motif. Would it be weird to have items signifying my sister-in-law's favorite things? The things that come to mind are dance shoes, a flute, classical music CDs, a journal, perhaps a microscope (she teaches biology)? These don't really scream bridal shower to me, and it's not like we're having a memorial. Oh, I don't know.

What do you guys think?

Together

Peter is home. He's still sick, and has shared his illness with the rest of us, but at least he's home. We have to keep reminding him to drink water so he doesn't end up back in the hospital. That sounds cruel, doesn't it? It's what the doctor told us though. He's even well enough that he's been fairly ornery since coming home, which is both reassuring and frustrating.

I'm so thankful that's he home and that he's starting to feel like himself. I think it's a good way to start the week of Thanksgiving.



I'm thankful that my little boy is healthy enough to be naughty, and that's something I never thought I would say.

What are you thankful for?

UPDATE: Dehydrated

I don't have the wherewithal to write anything good today. Usually when I feel like this I look around until I find a funny clip or some interesting site that I can link to. Not this time. I would feel flippant putting something funny on here today.

First I will say that we're all okay, but three of us are more okay than the fourth. Peter is in the hospital right now. Well, right now as in while I'm writing, but hopefully not the right now of when you're reading. I thought we were all feeling better from our weekend illness, but I was wrong. I took Peter to the doctor today for fever, vomiting, aches, runny nose, and a cough thinking he might have picked swine flu up somewhere (he can't have the vaccine because it contains egg). The good news is that he doesn't have swine flu (probably). The bad news is that he was so dehydrated the doctor sent us over to the hospital to do an IV treatment.

He said it would probably take a few hours, but there was a slim chance that Peter would be kept over night. After running some tests, they discovered that Peter's electrolyte count was frighteningly low. I felt really bad that he was in such bad shape, that I hadn't taken better care of him. He had only thrown up three times, so it never occurred to me that he might be dehydrated. The usual indicator of dry lips doesn't mean anything in this desert we call a state. I have some guilt over this.

The doctor decided that Peter needed to be kept overnight. Bryan took the first shift, I took the second because Bryan had an appointment he couldn't reschedule, thank goodness my sister-in-law dropped whatever she had been planning on doing and came to stay with Cooper (no one under fourteen was allowed into the hospital as a visitor). Peter was acting much more like himself when I left. When we arrived at the hospital to begin the treatment he has so weak and shaky that he couldn't walk and he was extremely pale. Peter is usually a rosy-cheeked ball of energy, so I could tell he didn't feel well, I just didn't realize how bad it was.

He should be coming home today. I hope he does. We still don't know what made him so sick, but whatever it is, I hope it goes away. Far, far, away.

Next week I hope to have something funny or clever or insightful to say here, but for now, I just hope for a healthy Peter.

Update:

By the light of day I'm calmer about this, although still concerned about Peter. The pediatric ward did everything they could to make Peter feel better. His popsicle count when I left was four, and I think he'll ask for more this morning.

Here's the thing, I know that lots of kids have to go through much worse than being poked in the arms and hands repeatedly in a twenty-four hour period, I can think of some off the top of my head. To many people this might seem like a little thing, but for our family, and for Peter especially, this was a fairly traumatic experience to add to our been-there-done-that list. I thought about this as I fell asleep last night and again as I woke up this morning. He won't have to go back for repeat procedures, he won't have to live in his room on the pediatric floor for months, he won't have to come home and inject himself with medicine for the rest of his life, and for these things I am truly grateful.

I wrote about this to get my thoughts and feelings down while they were fresh. If I had waited until today it would have been a much lighter, more watered-down version. Instead, I think some of my guilt over his being dehydrated came through, which is good for me to look back on. Anyway, I just wanted to complete my thoughts and give a little more perspective to what I wrote last night.

Tis Better To Give

The year that I was pregnant with Peter I kept having the thought that I should do my Christmas shopping early. In the past I've made regular Wal-Mart runs during the week leading up to Christmas searching for last minute items to put under the tree, so this was a foreign concept for me.

I followed the prompting though and did the last of my shopping the week of Thanksgiving. If I remember correctly, I even wrapped the gifts early. I had no idea that a week and a half later I would be put on bed rest for signs of preeclampsia. Two days before Christmas my doctor released me from my rest. If I hadn't done my shopping early Bryan's gifts probably would have consisted of socks and a hug.

I'm not pregnant this Christmas, and don't anticipate any edicts from medical personnel that will keep me from running errands. That means I should plan to do all of my shopping the week before Christmas, right? Actually, we've decided to get our Christmas shopping done early. We're actually almost done.

I've chosen to be mildly crazy and make some of the Christmas gifts I'm giving. Why did I do that? Did I forget that I have little-to-no experience making things? Since some of the gifts I'm making are for people who read this blog, I can't talk about them in specifics.

Except for one. I'm making a scarf for my brother-in-law who's serving a mission in Wisconsin. I was about a third of the way into it when I realized that it was horribly uneven. My friend reassured me that it could be fixed without unraveling any of it. I tried to believe her, but the more that I stared at the scarf, the more it bothered me.

I did something even crazier than starting the scarf: I unraveled it. All of it. On a positive note, the five rows that I have on the new scarf are beautifully even.

Are you making any gifts this year?

Krump, Yo

This is for anyone who watches So You Think You Can Dance (which, in all honesty, I haven't seen this season) and thinks krumping just doesn't get enough screen time.



I chuckled to myself throughout the day yesterday because this scene kept popping into my head.

Time Marches On

On Sunday Peter counted to two-hundred and ten. Bryan and I kept sending each other looks of, "This is amazing," and "Can you believe this?" across the table at each other. He did most of it on his own, although there were two notable places that tripped him up. He has a hard time remembering thirty and fifty. This was demonstrated by a conversation that Peter and I had last week.

Peter: I'm almost four.

Me: Yes, you are.

Peter: And Cooper is one.

Me: Yup.

Peter: How old is Daddy?

Me: He's thirty.

Peter: And how old are you?

Me: Twenty-nine. If I'm twenty-nine now, how old will I be next year?

Peter: Sixty.

Happy Working Song

A few months ago our Bishopric made the announcement that they loved to see our faces at church, but they didn't want our germs, so, in case of illness, would we please stay home. Two weeks ago our Relief Society President made a similar plea, in part because we have families in our ward that have decided it would be better to stay away from church until flu season is over rather than be around all those sick people that drag themselves to church, no matter what.

Yesterday we did our part to stop the spreading of germs. The boys had been showing signs of not feeling so great for most of Saturday, but I didn't think it was anything major. Then Peter woke up at 11:40 on Saturday night and said he felt funny. Boy, did he ever. I will spare you the details, just know that clothing changes for both Peter and myself were necessary after clean-up was complete.

And on that happy note, we decided he should stay home from church.

The rest of us woke-up in a less than awesome state on Sunday. I really wanted to feel better because the choir was singing a beautiful song in Sacrament meeting and I wanted to be there for it. But alas, such was not to be.

A funny thing about Bryan when he's sick: once he gets enough energy, he starts to clean. I do this to a certain extent as well, but Bryan led the movement yesterday. Yes, I know it was Sunday, but Bryan pointed out that maybe something in our house was making us sick (we did discover a container of shockingly pungent broccoli lurking in the back of our fridge) and maybe we would start to feel better if we got rid of the culprit. I couldn't argue with that logic.

So, Bryan and I sifted through stacks of old mail and evaluated the contents of the refrigerator. Our two-hour cleaning jag was interrupted with brief rests so we wouldn't pass-out. (I've never actually passed-out, but I have come close, and I don't love it.) By the time we slumped into our chairs at the dinner table our house was much cleaner.

I hope we feel better today. And if we don't at least we can be sick in a clean house.

What Are You Worth?

Thanks go out to Kendra for posting this on her blog. Apparently I'm worth $158,389.00 per year. Too bad that's hypothetical money...

The Play's the Thing

One of my biggest worries as a mom is that I don't play with my boys enough. You might ask, "Then what do you do all day at home with them?" Excellent question.

I spend a lot of time cleaning, which I have mixed feelings about. I want to have a clean house so that the boys have a safe place to play, but I don't want to spend so much time cleaning that I ignore them. I usually compromise on this by:

1. cleaning where ever they happen to be playing, ie. sweeping when they're driving cars around the dining room, folding laundry when they're playing in the living room, wiping down the bathrooms when they're asleep because those are no-play zones in our house
2. having them clean with me

When we're not cleaning, we're often reading. This is something that I have no mommy guilt over. I am very good at reading to my boys. Sometimes I like to think this counts as playing with them, and maybe it does, but maybe it doesn't.

When I say I'm not very good at playing with them I mean I kind of stink at building with blocks and Play-Doh and drawing. I can do them, but my architectural repertoire is sadly small and I run out of ideas pretty quickly. I'm good at the make-believe stuff though, so usually as the boys are playing I'll sit in their room and talk to them while they do the playing. Often I'll have a project in hand so I don't fall asleep (is that a normal concern?) and I'll ask questions about what they're doing or about the things Peter is telling me about his cavalcade of invisible friends. I'm there with them, but I'm not really playing.

On Monday though, I really played with the boys. Peter made a train out of the dining room chairs and we sat in our cars and rode the rails.

Our chair train

And it was really fun.

Connected

I can't decide if he's sending a text or playing a game. Maybe he's checking his email.

The Premier Primary Program

Sunday was the big show. The main event. The beginning.

It was Peter's first Primary program.

He's really progressed over the last year in terms of public speaking. Based on all of his Primary orations, I was both excited and nervous for him to deliver his one line in the program on Sunday. I was hoping to get to church early so that we could sit in the front of the chapel. I wanted to be able to see Peter as he sang the songs from his seat on the stand as well as see him when he stood at the microphone.

Plans are funny things, aren't they?

Thirty minutes before church was to start Peter announced he was done eating lunch. I was relieved because I could feel our prep time slipping away. I asked Peter to go use the bathroom so he could get dressed for church.

Cue hysterics.

Peter went from calm, happy boy to thrashing, foaming, crazy in about two minutes. It was not pretty. He kept screaming that he wasn't done eating, wasn't going to church today, wouldn't be in the Primary program. I had to literally sit on him to get him dressed, and even then he kicked me off a few times. I had not budgeted enough time for such shenanigans and we finally wrestled him into his booster seat one minute before church was to begin.

Luckily we live about one minute from the church. We walked in as the Bishop was welcoming everyone. We were there before the opening song. That would usually be a win for us, but remember, we wanted to sit up front. So we stood in the doorway scoping out the pews. We actually walked up both aisles only to find scriptures and purses holding places in the rows we thought were vacant. Our ward is huge and we finally found seats in the cultural hall. So much for seeing Peter during the program.

By the time we sat down, the man of the hour had stopped sobbing (something that he had continued to do during our drive over) and was sitting on Bryan's lap looking sullen and puffy-eyed. I had been praying that he would be able to calm down and now started to pray that he would cheer up so that when the time came he would be willing to say his line.

At the conclusion of the Sacrament I watched as the other Primary children and their teachers rose from their seats and headed up to the front. Thankfully Peter's sweet Sunbeam teacher walked near to where we were sitting. We pointed her out to Peter and coaxed him to follow her to the stand. To my great relief, he did.

Bryan and I spent the next forty minutes with necks strained at odd angles in order to see Peter. Cooper even stood on Bryan's lap so he could catch a glimpse of big brother. Later, during a quiet moment in the program, we realized the folly of this choice when we saw Peter point in our direction and clearly heard him say, "I see Cooper!"

I had been at the rehearsal the Primary had held on Friday night, so I recognized Peter's cue line when it came. I grabbed Bryan's arm and mouthed that this was it. We watched Peter, his classmate Carly, and their teacher walk to the microphone. Peter climbed up, paused briefly to take in the somewhat overwhelming sight of a packed house, and delivered his line loudly into the mic, "Fathers are to preside over, provide for, and protect the family with love." He didn't need to be prompted. He had it memorized.

My sigh of relief was audible. And I think my grin may have been visible from space.

He did a great job for the whole program. I was amazed that most of the kids knew all the songs. The majority of the musical numbers in past Primary programs I've seen consist of all the teachers singing loudly and many of the children either waving to their parents, trying to run off the stand, or looking out at the congregation with a glazed expression. Not this Primary. They knew their stuff. And they sounded good. Peter sang out nice and loud and clearly knew the words. He even danced a little.

I think our first foray into Primary programs was a smashing success, in my own wonderfully unbiased opinion.

Sugar Shock

My brain is sludge. That's how it felt all day yesterday. I wanted to answer questions in Sunday School and Relief Society, but I couldn't quite trudge through my mental fog to come up with anything coherent. Why is that? What is causing this stupor?

Could it be the pumpkin cookie I ate on Saturday? I made five dozen pumpkin chocolate chip cookies (based on the comments I received, I have mad baking skills) for our Young Women Leadership Training (which went really well) on Saturday. I made them with sugar, so I knew that they were off limits to me. Except on Saturday evening I was so hungry that I grabbed one and chomped down. "It's mostly pumpkin," I told myself, "it should be fine."

But it wasn't fine.

I had a sugar reaction, although not a huge one. I thought I was okay by the time I went to sleep.

And then I had to wake up on Sunday. Ugh. I spent most of the day feeling like a I was carrying heavy weights on every appendage. And as I said at the beginning, my brain is sludge. Sugar-induced, ooey-gooey, sludge.

Thank goodness the boys and I made another batch of pumpkin-cookies last night, this time with honey. Now when the temptation to eat one of the death-by-sugar-pumpkin-cookies hits, I can reach for a light, fluffy, honey-sweetened cookie and avoid fuzzy brain syndrome.

Hopefully.

Slow and Steady

I realize that it's been two weeks, but I wanted to say thanks for the wonderful comments on my post about, well, comments.

I've been rather introspective for the last few weeks about why I have this blog. Initially I wrote it to provide some intellectual stimulation for my foggy mommy-brain. However, over the last year and a half, this blog has also become a way for me to get out my frustrations, celebrate my triumphs, and connect with my friends that live too far to connect with in person. This blog, and your blogs, really provide a great deal of my grown-up socialization. I do try to hang-out with people face to face too, but that usually happens during play-dates and park visits. Many of those conversations are often interrupted with, "Cooper, don't throw the wood chips!" and "Peter, stop taking their toys." I tend to wax a little more philosophical here than I do when I'm standing around the swings.

My progress in commenting on your blogs has been slow, but steady.

And with that, I am going to turn my attention from blogging, to the twenty minute lesson I'm supposed to teach to the Young Women leaders in my Stake tomorrow morning. Anyone have anything good I can share about Personal Progress?

Repentance

Peter: (to Bryan before Family Home Evening on Monday) Daddy, we learned about repentance today.

Bryan: (giving me a questioning look) Um... okay.

It's true. We discussed the steps of repentance, particularly the part about trying to fix the things you've done wrong. This talk took place while the boys were using baby wipes to wash red pencil off the wall.

You can probably guess what prompted the lesson...

Sharp Dressed Men

My Grandma has shopping skills. To be specific, she has thrift store shopping skills. Her favorite haunt is called the Quality Thrift Store, or as it is more commonly referred to in our family, The Diggins. She went on a grand search recently to acquire church clothes for the boys. What she found was second-hand gold. May I say that we have the sharpest dressed three-year-old in the whole Primary.
She found the shirt, tie, vest, and jacket that Peter is wearing in these pictures. She asked for photos, and the only way we could get Peter to consent to the photo session was if Cooper joined him.

Please allow me to present Peter in Diggins chic and Cooper in late 2006 Wal-Mart:







My goodness, I have cute little boys. Even with Cooper's bruised forehead (occupational hazard of being so top-heavy), he's awfully photogenic.

Thank you for the clothes Grandma. They're wonderful!

Give Me Something Good to Eat

We (and by we, I really mean Bryan and the boys) got so much candy at our Halloween Eve festivities that we decided to forgo trick-or-treating on All Hallow's Eve itself. Instead, we ate jack-o-lantern pizza, carved pumpkins (that my friend grew in her garden and kindly gave to us since all of ours were still fairly small when the garden froze *sniff*), and watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. It was a good night.

Here's Bryan hard at work. I did all the seed scooping and he did all the carving, a nice arrangement since I don't mind the slimy innards and he doesn't mind wielding a knife.

Our pumpkin friends on Saturday night:


Last night during dinner Bryan said something about the jack-o-lanterns, to which Peter said, "They're not jack-o-lanterns anymore. Mom cut their faces off."

Yes, yes I did. Our pumpkin friends today:

Blocked

Did you guess what their costumes were?

Cooper's costume fit at the beginning of our Halloween adventures, but by the end of the night it would no longer stay on his shoulders. Also, Cooper's box was so wide compared to the length of his arms that his hands couldn't touch. Peter didn't want to take his costume off.

You should have heard the responses these boys got:

"Whoa, mom look, they're Legos!"

"That's cool!"

"Hello, Lego brick."

"I love to build with you guys."

"Do they stick together?"

Most of the comments came from boys under the age of ten and men over the age of thirty. Some kids just starred with big round eyes as Peter and Cooper walked past. Overall, an excellent response and well worth my zombie-like state that day from having stayed-up until two in the morning the night before.

We counted Friday as Halloween at our house. Bryan was told that no one trick-or-treated in our neighborhood. This was confirmed when zero kids knocked on our door asking for candy on Saturday night. Weird. Luckily, Bryan's work hosted trick-or-treaters on Friday, our ward had a trunk-or-treat activity later that evening, and we went to a friend's Halloween party that night. By the time we got home at almost ten at night, we were a tired (and cranky) bunch.

Bryan and I went in costume to the party, but you're not going to get a picture of it. You see, we thought it would be perfect to dress-up as minifigs to go along with the boy's blocks. Basically this meant painting our faces (and necks, and ears) yellow. The yellow paint actually looked kind of cool. Bryan and I also had Lego logos to tape to our chests. I googled minifigs to see if there was anything else we should do to complete the costume. This is what I found:

Photo from here

So, according to the picture, we needed a black smile and black circles for our eyes. Okay, we could do that. I even pulled out my fancy Ben Nye stage make-up to really get a dark black on top of the yellow. We finished applying our costume, looked in the mirror, and realized that we looked horribly creepy. Like, rejected for the part of the Joker in Batman creepy. With the yellow base and the freakish black mouth and eyes I felt like a really cheerful goth. I asked Bryan if he thought we should wash it off before going to the party. He said no.

And so we went. And my friend who was hosting the party didn't know who I was when we walked in. We kept the make-up on for a solid twenty minutes before it started itching so much that we couldn't stand it. Bryan scrubbed his off with paper towels and water while I opted for the baby wipe method. I also had to shower when I got home to get the paint out of my hairline and ears. When I put lotion on afterward, my face burned for at least a minute.

Anyway, the picture of us at the beginning of this post was after we took off the yellow and black, which is probably why Bryan and I both look so happy. And slightly jaundiced.