Waiting

I've been woken up at 2 am twice this week with false labor. Not cool. It makes me kind of grumpy, and it makes the kids get to watch a lot of TV.

We've had a lot going on in our Relief Society in the last month. We had our March activity, and several food orders, and we're midway through a seemingly constant stream of people having surgery. I think, counting the last two weeks and the next two weeks, we're at seven? That seems like a lot of people from one group going under the knife. Oh, and don't forget the babies. We've just about got it all squared away. I've been feeling like Heavenly Father won't let me have my baby until everyone else gets taken care of. Are we close enough yet?

I heard a story that made me laugh. A wife called her husband on April Fool's Day to tell him she was in labor. Pretty good trick, right? Except it meant he missed the birth of their son because he thought it was a joke. It made me laugh pretty good.

Farewell, piano

Yesterday we lost our piano. Sad day. For two years we stored my sister-in-law's brother's piano and yesterday they came to pick it up. But I'm looking forward to having the extra space back in our living room. You know, until all that baby stuff starts exploding everywhere. I loved having a piano but I didn't actually play it that much and I don't think we'll be replacing it until after we've moved, somewhere, sometime. It just felt a bit too squishy for me in that room.

I read a blog post somewhere the other day about the small house movement. Apparently there is a small house movement that values functionality over square footage. And I can get behind that. I don't feel like I need a big house, or a lot of belongings, in order to impress the neighbors. But. If we don't get into something a little bigger with a much better kitchen in the next few years, my head may explode.

I keep forgetting funny things Alice has been doing. She likes to make funny faces. I don't remember this being a thing at not-quite two with the other kids.

And one day she wanted her clothes off, so I helped her. Then she walked into Clara's room for a bit. She came back out, having put on one of Clara's skirts. But she can't pull it up over her diaper in the back so it was normal in the front, and bowed way down in the back. And she came out, threw her arms out, like ta-da! Look at me, world! She was so proud of herself.

Nathan is still learning to read, and adding numbers, and such. He loves kindergarten, luckily. He is starting to not love homework, though. He has been wanting to go outside and catch some bug pets lately. And he really wants a goldfish in a space rocket aquarium for his birthday. I'm considering it, because I'm tired of my mason jars getting filled with weird junk from the yard to satisfy his want for a pet.

Clara has been learning lots about letters from our home preschool. Once a week my sister comes over and teaches Clara and her daughter. Sometimes I help, but really it's mostly her show. I have a pretty great sister. Clara is learning to write her name and random other letters from the alphabet. I really need to be looking into preschools for the fall but I haven't really started yet.

That's pretty much it. Five more weeks from tomorrow.

We made it to March!

March is going to be a good month. I can feel it.

Here's what's been up. After feeling around in murky exhaustion and mental fog I'm figuring things out. My lesson I'm teaching tomorrow seems to be to a point that it won't embarrass my face off. That's always a good sign. I'm almost done editing a book for my friend. Then I'll be able to focus on my book club book and figure out what we're going to discuss. (I seem to to have a problem with picking books that don't have discussion questions conveniently in the back, and then I have to write my own.) I've been awake since 5:30 planning our March Relief Society activity. Seems like this shouldn't be on my mind, but I seem to be bad at delegating when I'm pretty sure things won't get done. But I have a plan and now the delegating will happen. So once I get through with this activity and go to my friend's temple sealing in a few weeks, I think I'll be ready to have this baby come. I have just over six weeks left but I'm kind of counting on it not being quite that long.

The pregnancy is going well. The scale says I have gained a lot of weight but we were never on close terms anyway. I've not had heartburn, or backaches, or most of those late pregnancy discomforts. I finally went back to see my hematologist and we have made our peace. I didn't go for a long time because I knew she'd push me to start prednisone before I was willing to, but we compromised and I know that taking it is really the best course. My platelets have come up quite a bit since I started taking it. And I'm dealing with the side effects better this time around.

And another thing about Alice: I forgot to put this last time, and it was so funny. She's stopped doing it already, which is a sad thing. Instead of yes, she'd say yea. Like "yay," you guessed what I wanted! or "yea," I'm from the sixteenth century. Now she's graduated to a more adolescent "Yeah." So casual. She's learning a lot of imaginative play. When I fold laundry she'll get a clean washcloth and climb into the laundry basket and wash herself. And, mom has to watch.

Clara is getting really excited and curious about the baby. She is wondering how the baby got in there, and how do I change the baby's diaper, and is the baby naked?

Nathan is still mad at me for not finding out if the baby is a girl or a boy. He does not want to be surprised. But he's keeping himself busy with school and general mischief while he waits.

Alice-Almost-Two

A few weeks ago we set up the toddler bed. Everyone was excited, and Clara was only a little bit sad she never got a chance to sleep in the star bed (she went directly from crib to bunk bed). She loves her big bed. She loves being able to climb in and out. She even learned to say star and moon in honor of it. She loves to get books and read them in bed. This morning I opened her door after the big kids had been up for a while. She was sitting on the floor and said, "No!" when I asked her if she was ready for breakfast. She came down like ten minutes later.

You can also see from this picture that she loves to dress up. She and Clara love to put on dresses, and Clara's learning to help Alice change, which I love. Alice can reach Clara's clothes bins, so she likes to put those on. Or at least try and get really frustrated when it doesn't work out. She also loves Clara's shoes.

Some of Alice's favorite things:
Playing with babies. She likes to change their clothes and feed them. She hates to get her hair done, but loves to put a flower in her hair when it's done. Sometimes we have to do several flowers before she's satisfied. Once she had five. She loves to copy everything she sees Nathan and Clara do.

She's also been picking up a lot of words lately. It's so nice, since it helps her not be so frustrated when she can't say what she wants. Some of her favorite words lately are:
Yes, no!, please, purple (she even uses it appropriately most of the time), flower, fish, shoes, please, baby, doggie, mommy, daddy. Doggie and daddy sound remarkably similar, both a sort of elongated "dieeee." It could be construed as a little threatening. But it's mostly adorable.

Yesterday for the first time she said cookie and up. Right now she's trying to say dinosaurs. Exciting times.

Christmas 2013

 On Christmas Eve we went to see the live nativity in West Haven. Alice did not enjoy it.

 Nathan insisted on wearing my scarf over all his winter clothes. He had to wrap it around his neck like four times to keep it from dragging on the ground.

 As always, it was beautiful.

The kids went to bed really well on Christmas Eve so we could get everything set up without it being too late. We set their scooters out by their stockings, and both of the older kids looked right past it to go for their stocking. Alice noticed, though. The first thing she did was climb on her scooter.

The girls' favorite things were the fairy wings and magic wands they both got. Santa didn't need to look much farther than the dollar store, I guess. Mom and dad forgot batteries, so Nathan couldn't play with his remote control helicopter. Oops. But they all had fun playing with Clara's pony princess castle and Alice's doll and bathtub. (It just took me a long time to remember what Alice got for Christmas. It's been a whole month.)

We went to my parents for lunch and presents and then finished the day with dinner and more presents at Levi's parents'. Busy good day. Merry Christmas.

We've had a birthday

 yeah, it was like, three weeks ago? And didn't Christmas happen at some point? Yes and yes. We're getting there. We set up  one of Clara's presents the night before so she could have a grand surprise. For once Clara was up before Nathan so she got a few minutes with it to herself.

We went out for Clara's birthday lunch at Applebee's, then dropped Nathan off at school and went home for Clara's Happy Birthday Tea Party. When we gave her the option of doing something fun as a family on her birthday, like bowling or a movie, all she wanted to do was invite Hannah over for a tea party. So we "girl party"-ed it up. A tea party with bananas, strawberries, pudding cups, and apple juice. Nail polish. Making necklaces. That sort of thing. It was a good time.

 Then we picked Nathan up from school and went up the hill to Danny's birthday party (it gets a little complex when two cousins share birthdays). Clara transitioned from princess tea partying to pirate partying. When I went back to pick up the kids Jon and Rachel let us borrow this birthday hat they'd just bought. It even had four candles, so it seemed perfect.

 Alice was an especially big fan of the birthday hat. She had to hold it up so it wouldn't cover her entire head. We served snacks and birthday cake for the grandparents and opened the rest of her presents. I didn't give her much choice in birthday cake decorating (not that she even eats cake). She seemed pretty happy with a rainbow.

Now, just a word about this four year old. Now that she's four, she can "probably read now." She's pretty sure. She is a big helper; I'm not usually very grateful for her efforts to help me clean the kitchen, or the bathroom, or sweep the floor, but her picking up toys is always appreciated. One day after we dropped Nathan off at school I told her I was tired and was going to lay down for a few minutes, and she said she would "do all your jobs."  I heard her downstairs moving around, and didn't pay much attention. Fifteen minutes later when I came down, she was standing on a chair at the sink, scrubbing dishes. Sometimes the purely generous soul she is makes my heart hurt a little with its beauty.

The Preschool Dilemma

Isn't it such a mom thing that if there's something we could possibly feel guilty about, we will find a way?

Preschool should not be a guilt thing.

My dear rambunctious three year old Nathan needed preschool. Having that time away, that structure, that listening to other adults was irreplaceably good for him. And I felt a little guilty about it, but his behavior was such that I knew we should go for it.

Clara's now four. And at the beginning of the year I decided she didn't need two years of preschool. And she is so shy I didn't think she was ready for it. So I told her, "when you're four you'll go to preschool." And she brought it up, on her birthday. "Now I'm four and I can go to preschool!"

I drop Nathan off at kindergarten after lunch, come home and put Alice down for her nap, and there's poor bereft Clara, bored and "lonely." She doesn't know how to play by herself. And boring pregnant mom just wants some time to rest. So I've been idly thinking preschool might be great.

But my friend just told me they have an open spot in her daughter's preschool. Shouldn't I feel great about this? I don't, for two reasons.

I'm a tightwad that doesn't want to pay 85 dollars a month.

It makes me feel like I'm bunting on meeting her needs. I can teach her letters and counting and all those things. I can be more proactive at arranging play dates for her. I can do those things, and in an ideal world, I would have the mental energy to do them.

So, the question is: enroll in preschool now, or wait till the fall? I think by the fall  I'll be definitely ready to send her off. It's not really that big of a question, is it? It would only be six hours a week.