Friends with Children

My friend Charlynn put this on her blog. I thought it was worth re-posting. The question the person is asking the advice columnist: what do stay-at-home moms do all day? The columnist does a good job answering the question.

I think it's interesting that we, no matter who we are, often have to justify how we spend our time to someone else. Those without children seem to have copious amounts of time when viewed by their friends with kids. Those with kids who stay at home might seem to have endless leisure hours from the perspective of their working friends. Why is that? Is it a "grass is always greener" mentality?

You'll have to click on the article (which my friend got from the Washington Post) to read it. Do, and let me know what you think.

Two Years Later

My two youngest siblings

The day they both went into the MTC

are home from their missions and are at my house right now!

This morning at about midnight, sitting at my table.

Huzzah!

The Story of a Toy

We're having a "staycation." Yes, that is a made-up word (Bryan HATES it). Because we're here and not in California we've been trying to find fun stuff to do locally. Our big morning activity yesterday was something brand new for both boys.

We went to a movie.

In a theater.

And we stayed the whole time.

We took the boys to see Toy Story 3. In case you're wondering, all the positive reviews are true. It was a wonderful movie. And I cried. A lot. Not as much as I did during Up, but still quite a bit. Bryan told me that he got misty-eyed too. The boys really enjoyed the movie, especially Peter. Cooper stayed in his seat almost the whole time and sat on my lap for the few minutes he wasn't. Granted, many Red Vines and Smarties were required to maintain Cooper's cordial demeanor, but it was a special occasion, right?

Peter, totally enthralled in the previews, taken on Bryan's phone.

There was a moment toward the end of the movie that got particularly intense. Peter started to cry and shout, "What's going to happen to Woody? What's going to happen to Woody? I don't want to be here anymore!" Bryan pulled Peter onto his lap and held him until the scene passed. Peter was fine after that.

Cooper, digging his theater-provided booster seat, also taken on Bryan's phone.

I'm pretty impressed that Cooper stayed for the entire movie. I went expecting to have to take him out for at least part of the time. Also, we went at the perfect time. It was the first showing of the day. There weren't very many people there and those that were there were young families; I doubt that anyone was going with the expectation of complete silence.

Bryan and I agreed that it was the perfect first movie for the boys. And Peter has been asking questions about it ever since the movie ended. Lots of "why did this happen?" and "why did that happen?" He also pointed out that the voice of the pig was also the voice of Mac from Cars. He's already identifying actors and assembling their body of work in his head, which is further confirmation that he is my child.

I hope today's activities go as well as yesterday's did.

Friends: The Next Generation

While we are sad that we didn't get to go to California, there are two major bonuses to staying here this week, other than looking for a place to live.

1. Our house is wonderfully clean. We spent Saturday morning cleaning. Bryan mopped. This has been my job in the past, but I told him that pushing the mop around was almost more than I could think about doing at this point. I think he may have a new job around the house considering that he performed the task much faster than I do it. Of course, I always let Peter help me, so that might account for the additional time spent.
2. We got to see our fabulous friend Janet who we haven't seen in FIVE years.

The last time we saw her was when she and her husband graciously let us crash in their studio apartment when we visited them in Manhattan. At the time they had one baby. Now they have three. And we got to meet the other two.

Peter and Cooper made fast friends with all three kids. We got to go watch fireworks with them on Saturday night, because this is Utah and the Fourth of July was on a Sunday. Here are four of the five. The baby was asleep and therefore did not make it into the picture.

We also took some pictures of our family while we watched the fireworks. Or, at least, we tried. Most of them looked like this:

How is it the one with a background in theatre is the only one not pulling a funny face? We got one good one:


And here are Janet and I at the end of the night, which is why I look, well, I'm not sure how to describe the look on my face. Really tired? Frozen into a painful and awkward smile? Blinded by a series a camera flashes?

Thank you for spending the evening with us Janet! It was wonderful to see you again and to meet your boys, and to see how big all of your kids are.

Peter asked me today if we could move to Manhattan. When I asked why, he said it was so he could be close to his friends.

Yup, they were definitely a big hit.

500

This is my five-hundredth post. That boggles my mind. Five hundred. Have I really put that many thoughts done for others to read? Apparently.

I sometimes wonder if this blog is the best use of my time. I mean, almost every night I have to set aside thirty to sixty minutes to write. That's time that could be spent reading, cleaning, house hunting, packing, or even better, spending time with Bryan.

But then I look back at past posts. There are so many things I would have forgotten if I hadn't put them on here. Things the boys said and did, my own random thoughts. In a way, this is the best journal I've kept in a long time.

Good Things to Come

Oh LeMira, I'm so thankful that you put this on your blog on Friday. How did you know it was exactly what I needed?

It's Raining, It's Pouring

You know the phrase, "When it rains, it pours"?

Well, I think I need a better umbrella.

We've been planning for a few months to go to California for the 4th of July and the following week. We were going to stay with my family, go to the beach, and make our first-ever trip to Legoland.

Notice how I'm using the word "were" and not "are"?

On Wednesday we took our car in for a pre-trip check. Wednesday evening we got the call that the car checked out, with one exception. The transmission was giving a danger code. We're not sure what the code meant because this was not a transmission shop, but they could tell enough that there was no way we should take the car on a long trip. They referred us to a transmission mechanic and sent us on our way.

When we got home from retrieving the car Bryan and I were brainstorming solutions. Could we take our other car? No, it's in worse condition than the first. Could we fly? I'm not sure what the no-flying cut-off is for pregnancy, but I didn't think I would be welcome on a flight as far along as I am. Could we rent a car? We decided that that was our best option.

Less than an hour after we got home from picking up the car, we got a voice message. It was our landlord. Since it was the last day of the month and our rent is due on the first, Bryan wondered out loud if he was calling to tell us our rent was going up.

No, but in retrospect that would have nicer.

One of the hazards of renting someone else's house is that they can decide to kick you out at pretty much anytime.

Any guesses what the phone call was about?

It turns out that the fellow who owns our condo wants to move back into it. Which means that we have to move out. By the end of July.

When Bryan relayed the message, I laughed. It was a slightly crazy, you've-got-to-be-kidding kind of laugh. We had just learned that our car could require extensive repairs, and now we were being told we might be homeless.

Awesome.

Here's a fun fact: counting our impending move, we will have moved during each pregnancy. I was almost halfway along with Peter during that move and eight months along with Cooper during that move. I'll be close to eight months with this little girl by the time we move this time too.

We've known for some time that they might raise our rent, but we figured that the choice to move would be our own. This is the second time we've been told that we had a month to move because someone else wanted the house we were renting, whether it was the bank or the owner. I'm growing weary of living in someone else's home.

So, we've begun the search. I'm sorry to say that our current abode is so nice, we are now thoroughly spoiled. I remember writing the same thing about our last place, but this time we've had a garage. And a garden. And really wonderful friends and neighbors that I'm going to miss. And the boys' closet is the size of a small room and has acted as a toy room that we could lock at night. I might miss that the most. It's much harder to leave this neighborhood than the last one.

We told the boys on Wednesday night that we had to move. Peter cried. Based on his reaction we really didn't want to tell him the other part of our bad news: that since we had such a short time to find a new house, we had to cancel our trip to California. We reached this decision after much prayer, so we knew it was right, we just didn't want to see him cry again.

You know what? Both boys took it really well. We told them the trip was just postponed for a while, not really canceled.

And now, in addition to not seeing my family or my beloved Pacific ocean (which I miss terribly), Bryan and I will be spending most of our waking hours looking at listings for a place to live. We drove around and checked out our first batch last night. Nothing promising. We'll keep looking.

And praying.

Enlarging My Talents

I feel like my to-do list has a major deadline. I must have all projects for the year done by September 1. There are a handful of things I've been working on. So far, one of them is done.

I crocheted this afghan for my niece. That blue color is actually lavender in person. It's the biggest thing I've crocheted so far. I learned a lot while doing it, and now realize some things that I should have done differently. I think the next one I make will be much better. Oh well, I've got to learn somehow, right?

Silver Lining

I wrote a few weeks ago about pregnancy symptoms I would be just fine without. As it becomes more difficult to find a comfortable position in which to sleep and sit and be, I want to focus on a few things that I really like about being pregnant.

1. My hair. Usually it's very fine. Right now? Much thicker than usual. I got it cut last night by a friend that had cut it last July (and yes, that was my last haircut) and she commented that it was thicker than she remembered. Excellent.
2. Nesting. I mentioned on Monday that I gave in to my urge to nest on my birthday. I believe that nesting is a truly inspired part of pregnancy. We moved when I was eight months along with Cooper and I'm convinced that the nesting instinct is what got our apartment clean. Very clean. All-walls-scrubbed clean. And though I'm pretty darn tired a lot of the time, my house is still pretty clean. I'm enjoying it while it lasts. If memory serves, once the baby gets here, all of those awesome nesting desires will disappear.
3. I'm cute. No really, as vain as it sounds to put into words, I am a very cute pregnant lady. Seriously. Maybe I just bought the right maternity clothes, who knows? But really, I rock the pregnant look.

On the days when I'm extra tired (yesterday), it helps to look at the positive aspects of being pregnant. Plus, the whole baby at the end is pretty nice too.

A Frugalista's Spa Treatment

Want to know how to keep two little boys in one place and entertained for two hours while you attempt to reclaim the weed patch that was once your garden?

One word: mud.

We went out this morning, armed with hand trowels and sunscreen, and pulled about half the weeds. (Half the weeds in two hours should tell you how bad it was.) Because we opted to utilize the community drip lines, we don't have to water our garden. I really like this, but it's probably why I've let the weeds get so bad: I simply don't HAVE to go out that often. The drip lines happened to be on when we went out this morning. This made weed-pulling easier because the ground was moist. It also gave the boys an immediate distraction from their usual task of running through other people's gardens (sorry neighbors, I don't think they've actually stepped on any plants yet) and leaving the gardens altogether.

I left them to it. At one point I looked up and saw that Peter was using a stick to paint Cooper with mud. Cooper was a pretty good sport about it, but he did start to bat Peter away when he had reached his mud-paint quota. Cooper wandered over to a slightly deeper spot of mud about halfway through the weeding session. I kept closer watch on him at his new location and looked up just in time to see him dip his head into the mud.

Awesome.

When he came up he had a mud stripe that went from the middle of his head down to right above his mouth. A second dunk added to the mud mask.

Both boys had a grand time, except when I insisted that they help dispose of the weeds. There was a woman tending her own garden about halfway down the row. I'm sure I looked like a crazy lady to her. "No Peter, don't throw the weeds across the garden. Walk all the way up to the bushes and drop them by the fence. No. No! Stop throwing them! Cooper, come away from the mud and help us pick-up the weeds. Stop throwing weeds at me! Why are you sitting? This job does not require sitting. Please pick-up the weeds. We will go home as soon as we're done picking-up the weeds!"

To be honest, I felt a little like a crazy lady too. They did finally help, which meant we could move on to gathering our tools, rinsing off our hands, and heading home. Before stripping off the boys' muddy clothes in the garage and thoroughly scrubbing both children clean in the bathtub, I did what any good mom would do.

I documented the mess.

Remember, this was after they had washed off in the garden.