My Mother's Day

My favorite flowers and a book I had mentioned wanting to read, from Bryan:

A clay pendant with his thumb print on it, from Peter:

A plate with original artwork, from Cooper:

A sticker collage, from Phoebe:

Cards from Phoebe, Cooper, Peter, and Peter (yes, he made two):

And gifts made at church. Phoebe loves me because I say I love you and I'm pretty. She knows I cook and vacuum, and she's only thirty years off on my age. I'm afraid she and I have never watched Pocahontas together though. Wishful thinking on her part, perhaps?

My mom's name is: Margot
My mom's age is: 3 and 1/2
My mom's eyes are; green
When my mommy works, she: makes dinner
My mommy's hair is: brown
My favorite thing to do with my mommy is: vacuum
My mommy laughs when: funniness
My mom's favorite TV show is: Pocahontas
I love when my mom: she says I love you
My favorite thing my mommy cooks is: waffles
I really love my mommy because: she's so pretty

Peter has no idea what I do after he goes to sleep, but he got some of the other questions right. It looks like we need to find a new favorite thing to do together. It used to be reading, but he does that on his own now.

My mom loves to: sing
My mom's favorite food is: watermelon
Before bed every night, my mom: I have no idea
My mom works hard at: nowhere home
My mom's favorite place to go is: the Temple
My mom's favorite thing to do with me is: I have no idea

This is Phoebe's picture of her, a tree, and me, in that order.

And finally Cooper's drawing of me. I like that he included my favorite color.

How was your Mother's Day?

It Was Mom

To the special moms that have made me who I am so I can be the mom that Peter

and Cooper

and Phoebe

and Sophie need,

thank you.

Happy Mother's Day!

Still Trying to Be Clever

I'm finally working on turning my blog into a book using Blurb. I'm not sure I'll print with them, but I've been playing with their layout software. I've started all the way back at the beginning and am editing and formatting the posts from 2008. I only have a few minutes here and there to work on it, so it's slow going. A few things stand out to me as I reread these past writings.

Cooper and Sophie look a lot alike. A LOT. I already knew that, but it's interesting to see evidence.

It took me a while to find my voice. Those early posts read like I'm flinging information out into the void, not sure who will catch it or what my real purpose is. That's precisely what I was doing, and am still doing to an extent, but now I at least know who my main audience is: me. I write what I want to write to record what I want to remember. This often coincides with what the grandparents and aunts and uncles and friends want to read, but ultimately I write for myself.

Cooper was little when I started this blog, littler than Sophie is now. That means that many of my early blog posts center on the highly-verbal, incredibly-animated, two-year-old Peter. I was in awe of how cute and funny and precocious he was. He still does lots of the same things he did then. So at what point do cute and funny and precocious turn in to boastful and rude and argumentative, because we've crossed that line and I want to go back. Is it all in our perception of his behavior? Or were we such naive first-time parents that we didn't realize what his constant talking and reasoning and application of logic would turn into?

I used to link to a lot of outside articles. I would casually throw out a reference to something, link to it, but then not really explain it. Now I'm having to examine those posts and decide if I want to take the time to elaborate on what the link meant, or just delete it and move on.

I looked at the date of my first post: May 9, 2008. My blog turns six tomorrow! I feel like having a little celebration. That might seem silly, it is after all, only a blog. But because I've dedicated to posting something every weekday, I spend a lot of time staring at this particular screen, thinking about what to record, and then typing and deleting and typing some more. I stay up late (tonight I'm the last one awake) to make sure I keep this commitment.

I had no idea when I started this blog that I would be writing it six years later, long after the popularity of casual blogging has waned. Many people have now moved to Twitter or Instagram to share, and have let their blogs fall by the wayside. Or if they are still blogging, it's for profit at some well known blog. I'm sticking with this not-for-profit, can-only-find-it-if-you-already-have-the-address blog. As we move (which we seem to do a lot of these days) it's nice that my thoughts always have a home.

The Gallon Challenge

After a week of wearing a splint and sling, Peter now has a very hard accessory for his left arm. 

He chose red, of course.

He was concerned that the cast was wet and wouldn't provide adequate protection. The tech assured him that it would dry very quickly.

Bonus: Peter has a glow-in-the-dark stripe that winds all the way up his cast. His arm looks a lot like a candy cane.

I saw the x-ray of the break. I expected to see a crack, but it wasn't like that at all. Have you ever bent a thick branch? It's so solid that it doesn't really break, but it does bulge out at the sides a bit. That's kind of what happened to Peter's arm. It was really interesting to see.

We go back in four weeks to see how he's healing. Then, if everything looks good, he'll be in a brace for a week, then back to normal. Well, normal minus falling off the top of the monkey bars.

The doctor told Peter not to use the cast as a weapon or a tool (he must work with little boys often) and not to get it wet. The example the doctor used was, "It's okay if it gets a little wet, but don't let him shove it in the mud."

As we stood in the waiting room making his follow-up appointment, this last admonition was revisited. Peter quoted the doctor about mud and I said that meant not to get water on it. Then Peter asked, "So does that mean that I can pour a gallon of milk on it?"

No Peter, it really does not.

Grandma Great

Sophie and her siblings are lucky. They know three of their great-grandparents. I grew up knowing my great-grandma, my Granny, but I know most people don't. I love that my kids have that.

Bryan's grandma relished every opportunity she got to hold our sweet girl this weekend. Sophie is the fifth new baby on that side of the family born in 2013. The first is a grandchild, the other four are great-grandchildren. To date, Sophie is the youngest of their descendants.

Aggies

Every once in a while we decide to completely lose our minds and drive for two days, spend two days somewhere, then drive back for two days. Utah was lovely. Bryan's brother is now a college graduate. Sophie met her great-grandma and great -grandpa and several additional family members. And the big kids loved playing with cousins and friends.

We're now home. We're all exhausted. And the trip was totally worth it.

Word Man

Cooper loves workbooks. You know those thick, colorful ones that come from Costco and supposedly cover a whole year's worth of curriculum? They are his favorite. He finished his old kindergarten book one day during spring break and I promised him a first grade book to work on next.

Yesterday he was busily writing, polishing off the first and second sections in the new book. He turned to the new section, let out a contented sigh, and said, "I love vocabulary."

Me too, Cooper.

A Couple of Cute Cougars

Gimme A Break

Peter has had a lousy week. It culminated yesterday in him falling off the top (yes, the top) of the monkey bars at the park after school. I was sitting on a bench feeding Sophie when it happened, so I didn't see the fall itself. I looked up to see him on the ground, crying. He walked over to me, holding his left wrist with his right hand.

He said he thought it was broken. Based on how his fingers were moving, I thought he might be right. Unfortunately, we had walked to the park so we couldn't get it x-rayed immediately. We gathered Cooper and Phoebe and headed home with the plan to then go to urgent care.

But on the way he perked up. He stopped holding his arm as he walked. He got in the van when we arrived home and waited as I got the other kids put together enough to make it through a wait at the doctor. By the time we were ready to go Peter was cracking jokes and not acting like he was in pain.

After talking to Peter and consulting with Bryan we decided to ice his wrist and wait for a bit. If it still hurt, then Bryan would take him after work. Peter could move his wrist back and forth and wiggle his fingers and mostly make a fist. He couldn't rotate his hand though.

When I've heard of kids breaking a bone and waiting days to get it checked out, I've always been perplexed. How could the parent not know it was broken? Wouldn't it be obvious? Now I understand.

When Bryan got home he took Peter to urgent care. The doctor couldn't tell either at first. After the x-ray she determined that Peter had broken the tip of one of the bones in his arm, which is in his wrist. She called it a green break and said it was hard to diagnose without an x-ray.

So now Peter has a splint and a sling for a few days until the swelling goes down and a hard cast can be put on. He's in pretty good spirits, although he's sad that he won't be able to do PE and recess and play with his friend like normal. I feel bad that I didn't take him right to the doctor. I've never broken a bone, so this is new territory for me. I guess now I know for next time.

And I really hope there isn't a next time.

A Balanced Diet

I try to have some kind of fruit or vegetable available at every meal. Today during lunch I gave Phoebe a choice.

Me: Would you like an apple or a banana with your sandwich?

Phoebe: I don't want an apple or a banana.

Me: It's good to have fruit. Which one do you want?

Phoebe: No, I just want chocolate.

Me: Did you know that some people take an apple like this one (I held up an apple), put a stick in it, then they dip the apple in caramel (her eyes got big) and chocolate (even bigger eyes)?

Phoebe: (in hushed, reverent tones) Do you do that?

Me: No, I think it ruins the apple. I like my fruit to taste like fruit.

Phoebe: I like my fruit to taste like chocolate.