Heroes and Villains

Peter and Cooper are very into superheroes right now. They chase each other around the house, one playing the hero (usually Peter) and one playing the villain (almost always Cooper, because Peter does the casting). I encourage them to share the title of hero and fight an invisible foe, but it seems that is not as fun as fighting your brother.

After we watch movies the boys like to discuss who was the villain and who was the hero. They do it while we're reading too. I'm a proponent of being an active media consumer, so I encourage and participate in these discussions.

I think that's what prompted the following exchange:

Peter: Mom, is Satan a super-villain?

Me: YES! He is the supreme super-villain.

Nocturnal Habits of the Genetically Connected

I have been trying to remember how old Peter was when we stopped swaddling him when he slept. If we didn't wrap him tightly he would twiddle his hands to the point that he woke himself up. Cooper never liked being swaddled. He preferred having his arms and legs free to stretch out in all directions. Phoebe also has busy hands, more when she's asleep than when she's awake. It's those moving fingers that have inspired us to continue the baby-burrito routine each night.

As I was laying Phoebe down to wrap her up for the night I noticed something. She had her left leg bent at the knee with her left foot propped up on her right knee, much like many of the suit-and-tie-crowd sit during church. The reason this is significant is that I've often discovered Peter and Cooper asleep in the same position.

All three of my brothers sleep this way.

And so does my dad.

I love this quirky trait that they all share. I thought it was something just the men did, but Phoebe breaks that theory. I wonder, do I sleep that way too sometimes and it's never been pointed out to me?

Bibliophibian

My brother Jordan sent me the link to this site. Behold, my favorite of the comics:

Granola Tinkering

I've been playing with my granola bar recipe. Thus far I've made two modifications, one major, one minor.

The minor change was that I added cinnamon. I love cinnamon and toss it in whenever I can. Oatmeal? Yup. Chocolate chip cookies? Sure. Homemade chicken nuggets? Absolutely. So the addition of cinnamon was a no-brainer. The first time I used it I added 1 teaspoon. That was too much. The next time I went for 1/2 teaspoon. That was too little. I'm thinking 3/4 teaspoon should work. I'll try that next time.

The major change was that I swapped out the oil for applesauce. In addition to making them healthier, this modification made them softer, thus solving the complaint that they were too crunchy. Unfortunately, some of the flavor was lost. I haven't hit upon a satisfactory solution yet. Maybe half oil, half applesauce?

Easter Sunday Best

I decided last week that I wanted to get Phoebe an Easter dress. Yes, non-girlie me wanted to find a frilly, fluffy, girlie dress for my baby girl. But then we were sick (ear infections, sinus infections) and the weather was yucky and I didn't get out to the store.

And then on Saturday I realized that the next day was Easter. It kind of snuck up on me.

In case you're wondering, the day before Easter is not the best time to buy an Easter dress.

We looked at multiple stores and finally found one that was adequate at Old Navy. I mean, it's a darling dress, it's just not the frilly frock of my imagination.

She's still really cute though.

Maybe next year I'll go out early and get her that frilly dress.

But probably not.

Applause

Phoebe has added a handful of new tricks to her repertoire. She loves to clap and has been doing so for the last month. (Not continuously, otherwise her arms would be very tired.) Waving is another favorite activity. She also loves the camera and will stop crying if she thinks you're taking her picture.

In fact, she stops most actions other than smiling and cooing when the camera is present, which is why this is the best video I could get of her new tricks.

Party Planner

Peter went to his friend's birthday party two weeks ago. It's the second birthday party (and second Pirate-themed party) he's been to this month. He now has birthday parties on the brain. In fact, he's been campaigning for a party of his own.

Peter has never had a birthday party, but with good reason. He understands that his birthday is not well placed for inviting friends to a party. That Christmas break is kind of a no-man's land. So, he suggested having a half-birthday party.

I have to say that I think that's pretty darn clever. It would give him his much sought after party. But would throwing a half-birthday party for your five-year-old (or five-and-a-half-year-old) just seem like a way to con people into giving you stuff? Honestly, we don't want the stuff. We have lots of stuff. We'd like to get rid of most of our stuff. But giving Peter the experience of having a birthday party, well, that does sound nice.

I need opinions on this. What do you think? Yes to the half-birthday party? No and try to work out an early-January party on his next birthday to make it up to him? Does it even matter when you're five?

On The Mend

The last two days have gone well.

Surprisingly well.

What am I talking about? Peter didn't have any major-tantrums. Cooper took a nap. We made it through a trip to Costco without me vowing to never shop with children again. Phoebe had two naps, each day. We all did our chores.

More than all those wonderful things though was the way I felt. I was much less stressed out. I could have started Tuesday morning by freaking out when the boys woke up almost an hour too early or when Cooper (in an attempt to help with breakfast) poured a nearly full box of Cheerios all over the kitchen floor. But I didn't. I was sad about the cereal, but I told him not to worry about it and sent him to the table while I swept.

Bryan and I have been talking a lot lately about what we can do to help Peter. We recognize that Peter's propensity toward freaking out probably comes from us. We tend to be a bit, er, high strung. So, a huge effort has been put forth to stem the over-reacting on our parts. I wonder if we've begun to see the fruits of that change?

Also, I've been putting your wonderful comments on my early bird post into action. I took Camille's suggestion about going to bed at a set time each night, whether or not my to-do list is done. At least, that's how I'm implementing what she said. The result is that I've been getting to bed almost two hours earlier each night. (I also haven't been able to post before going to sleep, hence two late-in-the-day posts in a row.) I knew I was tired, but I hadn't realized how soul-crushingly exhausted I really was. I had almost forgotten what it felt like to have energy.

I feel like these are pieces to a bigger puzzle. Sleeping, not over-reacting, focusing on what I need to learn from each of my children instead of wondering what awful thing I did to deserve such naughtiness, each part adds to a happier home, a happier Peter, and a happier family.

I wonder what puzzle piece we'll discover next?

Mac or PC?

PC, just like her daddy.

P.S. I took this picture with my phone, hence its blurry nature.

The Next Generation

Last night during dinner Peter shared with us some of his plans for the future.

Peter: I'm going to have two kids. One girl. One boy.

Me: Why two?

Peter: No, two girls.

Me: Well Peter, if you and your wife pray about it and feel like that's the right number for you to have, then that's great.

Bryan: Do you want to have twenty-one kids?

Peter: No.

Bryan: Do you want to have forty-seven kids?

Peter: No.

Bryan: Why not?

Peter: Too messy.

Mompetitor

I just read this article on MSN about moms that brag about their kids. The sentiment is that moms who talk about the many cute and amazing things that their children do are kind of sad and clearly feel like they have something to prove.

Really?

I am totally and completely one of those moms that talks about what their kids are doing. Granted, I talk about the good and the bad, but I certainly don't shy away from sharing when my children express their natural brilliance.

One of the women in the article said she tries to steer conversations away from talking about her kids, and anyone else's kids for that matter. If someone did that to me, I would have very little to talk about. Sure, I could bring up some weird thing I saw on Facebook or a blog or read in the news, but the conversation would be short. I'm with the small people all day, every day. For me, talking about them is like someone else talking about their job.

I wonder if it's ever occurred to these women that those moms might not be trying to compete with them. I am genuinely amazed at some of the things my kids do and I get so excited that I want to share with anyone who will listen. I'm not trying to prove that my children are better than anyone else's, I'm simply celebrating the things that they are good at.

It's my right and privilege as their mom to thrill over even the smallest things that they do, and if that upsets or offends those around me, then my sincere apologies.

But I'm not going to stop.

In fact, I promise that there will be at least one my-child-is-brilliant-and-amazing post next week. How silly would it be to go around downplaying the cool things that your kids do and say just to make them seem average and like everyone else? You know, maybe they really are average, but to their mom, those kids are magnificent.

Everyone needs at least one person who thinks they're amazing. Who better than their mom?

It's Not Easy Being Green-Oh Wait, Maybe It Is...

We had French Toast for dinner tonight. It was delicious. However, I felt like our meal was lacking in something important: nutrition. So, I took a cue from a handful of friends and pulled the spinach out of the fridge. We enjoyed our first green smoothies tonight. Technically, they were a deep purple because of the berries I added, but the concept of a green smoothie still holds.

I just threw a bunch of stuff in the blender, so here's my Not Really a Recipe recipe.

Green Smoothies-First Attempt

• 1 cup orange juice
• 3 cups spinach
• 3/4 to 1 cup blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries
• rice milk (no idea how much I put in)
• 1 can of pears
• ice

Blend. Drink.

Here's the photographic evidence of how much we enjoyed it.

No, Phoebe didn't have any of the smoothie, but she did have prunes for the first time today, and she's really cute, so I thought that deserved a picture.

Mr. Water Bottle

My youngest brother made this and posted it on his blog yesterday.

And I think it's awesome.

With his permission, I'm putting it here.

I'm proud of Isaac, and not just because of this sweet video that he made. Isaac starts his first semester at BYU-Idaho on Monday and I'm thrilled for his new adventure.

The Early Bird

I've been feeling very strongly for the past few weeks that I need to start waking up earlier. I wrote about my night-owl tendencies early on in my blogging days. I wanted to rise earlier then too. I wanted that productive, up-with-sun-exuberance that I heard people talk about.

My main dilemma is that I still go to bed too late to be any good in the morning. Last night after I laid Phoebe down I cleaned the kitchen, called my grandma, and folded laundry. I was just wrapping everything up when Phoebe woke up with a sick stomach. I don't know about you, but when my children are in pain I can't just say, "Oh, I'm letting you go back to sleep on your own, so I'm sorry that your tummy hurts, but I'll see you in the morning." I held her until after midnight.

There are women in my ward that get up at 4:30 in the morning to go to the gym and accomplish everything on their list of things to do for the day. I think they are crazy. They're wonderful women, and my friends, but if I did that I would be weird and twitchy all day long, not to mention completely exhausted and without the patience necessary to deal with the small people at my house.

But I also envy them a bit. I think it would be nice to get up before my children. However, it doesn't seem to matter what time I drag myself out of bed. They (the three under four feet tall) seem to have a sixth sense about when I'm getting up. Without fail at least one of them is awake within minutes of me starting my day.

So, here's my new goal. I want to wake up for the day at 6 in the morning and go to sleep at night between 9 and 10. I have no plan of attack yet to accomplish this, so if you have any ideas I'd love to hear them.

Yours, Mine, and Ours

For Cooper's birthday last month Peter drew him a picture. Peter had been working on it for some time, but had hidden it so Cooper wouldn't find it. Peter would lie on the floor under their little coloring table and work on it. Because it was so well hidden, Peter forgot about it. So Cooper's birthday came and went without the presentation of the picture.

And then one day Peter climbed under his table to retrieve a lost crayon and found the picture. He quickly signed it and delivered it to his little brother.

This should give you better idea of how big it is. So far it's been used as a drawbridge for a castle, as the landscape for a train ride through our dining room, and a map for a quest.

It was so cool in fact that Peter tried to reclaim it. Shortly after he gave it to Cooper he announced that it was really his. I told Peter that once he gave something he couldn't take it back. He responded with, "No Mommy, if you were wearing your secret spy-glasses then you would see that it really says To Peter From Cooper."

Nice try, Peter.

Parenting 505

I mentioned on Monday that I watched General Conference praying for guidance on specific things. The biggest of those was about Peter.

I'm afraid we've hit a rough patch with him. And by rough, I mean screaming, violent temper tantrums coupled with blatant disobedience and a general disregard for those around him. He's started saying things like "I don't care" and "I hate this" and "Well that's just stupid."

I won't go into much more detail than that right now. I've actually avoided writing about it because it's so troubling. Anyway, I watched Conference hungry for anything I could use to help him. And help the rest of us.

This talk by Elder Lynn G. Robbins was an absolute answer to prayer. There were so many wonderful things in it that on Monday I went back and listened to it three more times. I think I might review it even more.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes:

To become as He is, we must also do the things He did.... To be and to do are inseparable. As interdependent doctrines they reinforce and promote each other. Faith inspires one to pray, for example, and prayer in turn strengthens one’s faith.... Do without be—hypocrisy—portrays a false image to others, while be without do portrays a false image to oneself.

Through discipline the child learns of consequences. In such moments it is helpful to turn negatives into positives. If the child confesses to a wrong, praise the courage it took to confess. Ask the child what he or she learned from the mistake or misdeed, which gives you, and more important, the Spirit an opportunity to touch and teach the child. When we teach children doctrine by the Spirit, that doctrine has the power to change their very nature—be—over time.

A sweet and obedient child will enroll a father or mother only in Parenting 101. If you are blessed with a child who tests your patience to the nth degree, you will be enrolled in Parenting 505. Rather than wonder what you might have done wrong in the premortal life to be so deserving, you might consider the more challenging child a blessing and opportunity to become more godlike yourself. With which child will your patience, long-suffering, and other Christlike virtues most likely be tested, developed, and refined? Could it be possible that you need this child as much as this child needs you?

The most important way to teach to be is to be the kind of parents to our children that our Father in Heaven is to us. He is the one perfect parent, and He has shared with us His parenting manual—the scriptures.

I've been trying to implement these principles over the past few days. I've been framing corrections to Peter in terms of "be" and "do". I've also repeatedly asked myself what I need to learn from Peter.

We have a looooooong way to go, but I hope this is the shift in direction we need.

It's True

The Granola Wars

Occasionally I am besieged with an overwhelming desire to bake something that is generally only store bought. Like bagels. I only made those once, but they were good and not too difficult. Hmm... I should make more bagels.

The boys and I have been talking for quite some time about making granola bars. I love granola bars. I love granola in general. And Peter can't eat many of the granola bars you can buy in the store. So I set about finding a recipe that looked appealing.

I found two. We made the first one last week and the second one yesterday. Here are the recipes and my accompanying thoughts:

The First

CHOCOLATE CHIP GRANOLA BARS

Makes 16 Bars

Ingredients

4 cups of quick cooking oats

1/3 cup canola oil

2/3 cup honey

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1 cup chopped organic nuts (optional) (We omitted the nuts.)

Method

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spread oats on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes, stirring a couple of times. Allow oats to cool to room temperature. Combine remaining ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Add cooled oats. Spread mixture into a 9x13-inch baking dish that has been sprayed or oiled, pressing down hard to compact it. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool completely and cut into bars.

Nutrition

With chopped nuts: Per serving (50g-wt.): 230 calories (110 from fat), 13g total fat, 2g saturated fat, 4g protein, 28g total carbohydrate (3g dietary fiber, 14g sugar), 0mg cholesterol, 0mg sodium Without chopped nuts:Per serving (42g-wt.): 180 calories (70 from fat), 7g total fat, 1.5g saturated fat, 3g protein, 27g total carbohydrate (2g dietary fiber, 14g sugar), 0mg cholesterol, 0mg sodium

We really liked these. They were sweet, but not too sweet. And they were surprisingly easy. Our only qualm was that they were a little too crunchy and the first few didn't hold together as well as we would have liked. I think that may have been because we ate them before they were completely cool. Pesky patience...

The Second

April’s Chewy Chocolate Chip Coconut Granola Bars

Ingredients:

2.5 cups rolled oats
0.25 cup ground flax (We used 1/2 cup flax, 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, and left out the next 3 items.)
0.25 cup raw sesame seeds
0.25 cup roasted salted pumpkin seeds
0.25 cup raw sunflower seeds
0.5 cup unsweetened shredded coconut (We only had sweetened, so we used that instead.)
0.5 cup semi-sweet milk chocolate chips
1 t cinnamon

1 t vanilla extract

0.3 cup honey
0.25 cup agave nectar
1 cup sunflower seed butter (I only had 1/8 cup sunflower seed butter left, so I used soy nut butter for the rest.)

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Line an 8×8 baking pan with parchment/wax paper.
2. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl.
3. Combine wet ingredients in a different bowl.
4. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix till well combined.
5. Press granola bar mixture into the baking pan. Cut into 8 bars BEFORE baking.
6. Bake for 25 minutes. (I have a convection bake setting on my oven and baked mine for 17 minutes)
7. Let cool completely (I put mine in the fridge on a hot pad) before removing bars from the pan.
8. Enjoy!

These were good, but not really granola bars. They were more like cookie bars. And the recipe says to cut the batch into 8 bars, but we cut ours into 16. They were thick and would have been HUGE if we'd left it at 8. Peter and Cooper liked them, but I don't think we'll make them again.

I've been pondering various add-ins to change that first recipe. And I'm wondering how to make them slightly chewier without sacrificing the granola bar quality.

The best part about making our own granola bars was the delight on Peter's face at the prospect of getting to eat real granola bars. He was thrilled, which made me smile.

Have you ever made granola bars? Do you have a favorite recipe you're itching to share?

Consumerism

Bryan recently got a new phone for work. I think Peter has noticed.

Peter: (during dinner a few nights ago) I want an iPhone.

Me: (certain I misheard) You want a what?

Peter: An iPhone.

Me: Why do you want an iPhone?

Peter: Because you can play games on them and watch TV on them and they're really cool.

My five-year-old wants an iPhone. Next he'll be asking for a laptop and a car.

Sorry Peter, you're going to need to wait a bit before you have any kind of phone, "i" or otherwise. Ask me again in ten years. Of course, by then babies will probably be sent home from the hospital with their very own cell phone and data plan.

My Testimony Grows

I loved General Conference this past weekend. I always do. I went into the weekend praying for guidance on some specific things. There was at least one talk in every session that addressed my questions. I truly have a testimony that if we prepare ourselves to receive personal revelation during Conference, we will.

Did you know that you can listen to all of Conference online? As of Sunday night (when this was written) most of the talks from Saturday were already available to watch, listen, or download. You can even opt to show the music and download all the songs.

Now that Conference is over I'm looking forward to reading or listening to the talks again as part of my personal daily scripture study.

Daily Exercise

Thanks go to my dad for sending this to me. I would add a few elements though, just to make it more realistic.

• Instead of a remote, I would be holding Phoebe.
• Peter and Cooper would be jumping off the couch
• And dancing circles around me.
• When not jumping or dancing, they would probably be throwing things at each other
• And at me.
• I might actually get one or two poses in, particularly if downward-facing dog is one of them since that's the one yoga move that Peter will do.
• "Waaaaahh!" and "Mommy!!" would be preceded by a thud
• Or a crash.

Otherwise, this is a pretty accurate depiction of my attempts at exercise.