Things on my mind at this moment in time

In no particular order

*I'm really glad Evie takes a pacifier.  I think it's cut down on her crying by at least 60%.  Now, if I could just figure out how to get her to go to bed at from 7 to 7 like a normal baby instead of this college co-ed 12 to 12 business, that would be gravy.

*You guys: Lillian's at school and all three of the other kids are sleeping.  I know, it's miracle nap time, so I'm taking this opportunity to write this instead of doing my chores.

*I'm having a quarter-life crisis, I think. Before now, the only people who were my age who were accomplishing things of note were Olympic athletes and child geniuses.  I think we can all agree that the people that make up those two groups are not normal; they are exceptional by birth.  I'm not all that exceptional, so I didn't have to be jealous.  BUT, now, normal people MY AGE are writing books of note, conducting groundbreaking research, starting their own companies, inventing things, making documentaries, presenting at conferences, and all sorts of other things that I'm not doing.

I get that I spent all the time that those other people spent working on their business plans and/or research birthing children and making peanut butter sandwiches.  And, believe me, if I didn't think that birthing and raising decent human beings was a worth-while way to spend my time, I wouldn't have done it four times over.

The kicker is that I haven't been thinking, "I have this awesome business/book/company idea that I'm TOTALLY going to do when my kids are older."  I've mostly just been drowning in cheerios and morning sickness.  This is what makes it a quarter-life crisis: I have no idea where to go from here.  My tentative plan was to go to nurse practitioner school, which I realize I could still do, but do I really WANT to do that?  I don't know.

*I started reading The Happiness Project and the author mentions her One Minute Rule for keeping her house organized- if the task will take less than one minute, do it right now.  Put away the pen, close the cabinet, put the bowl in the dishwasher, file that immunization card, put your makeup back in the bag instead of leaving it out, etc.  I've been trying to do this, and I've found that I'm spending a lot more of my day cleaning.  Up side: I have a cleaner house which puts me in a better mood.  Down side: I spend more time cleaning which puts me in a bad mood.

*We're going to California in a few weeks, and I'm beyond excited about it.

*I got the movie Mongol from the library on my sister Anne's recommendation, and I need to watch it.  I really liked Temple Grandin, her last recommendation.

*I thought it was hilarious when I figured out why Ethan was telling everyone at the grocery store that Evie really likes nickles.  Someone, it might have been me I'm not sure, gave Ethan an anatomy lesson specifically about breastfeeding.  I laughed until my eyes watered.

 

Camping at Lake Patagonia

I want to think of our family as One that Camps and Hikes.  After this weekend, I'm not sure that this is to be.  A few days ago, I was seized by anxiety about the impending summer and decided that if we were going to go camping anytime this year, right now- this weekend, in fact, was when it was going to happen.

Driving home this afternoon, I felt like a failure.  I had planned and executed this trip due to the fact that Tyler has had to work late pretty much every day this week.  I forgot a few items when I was packing: all toiletries except a brush and rubber bands (toothbrushes, toothpaste, contact solution and cases), tongs to turn the hot dogs, and I didn't get enough wood to have an evening AND morning fire.  This is not where the failure comes in.

 No, the failure comes in when you consider that the children were AWFUL the entire time.  They cried and whined about e v e r y t h i n g.  Lillian and Nora shared a sleeping bag that we opened up and folded like a hamburger, something we've done on other camping trips, this time it was unacceptable to both parties.  I brought the bear jammies for Ethan when he wanted the rocketship ones.  And, (this has been a growing trend around our house) they complained that they couldn't eat constantly.  I only brought so much food, the rations were not meager, but the lack of choices was devastating and could not be recovered from.

The lake was too cold to swim in, the boat tours were pricey, and Tyler has a semi-unexplained hatred of paddle boats, so we decided to take a hike.  This was a bad decision.  The kids were OK for about... half a mile... of our planned 2.5-mile hike.  It was too hot (approx high 70's), too sunny, not enough food, not enough of the food they want to eat, too much walking, not enough scenery, and I LOST ONE OF NORA'S SPECIAL ROCKS.

Side note: did you know that Nora loves rocks?  She always has at least one on her person, a special collection stowed away in her closet that she takes out and admires frequently, and I am constantly reminding her to take them out of her mouth.  At least once a day, I make her spit one out.

This picture was shot at the turn-around spot by the creek... right before Ethan wet his pants (something he hasn't done in a long time) and proceeded to cry the rest of the way back out of embarrassment and anger that I hadn't thought to bring him extra pants.

Tyler ranked the hike as a FAIL but the kids really liked the fire, so it was a net gain.  Lillian asked me when we'd go camping again, and I told her when she turned 10... in 3 years.

Ren Fair

I haven't been to a renaissance fair since high school, so when a lady in our ward offered free tickets, I eagerly accepted.  I spent so much time in what I feel like can be described as literally hauling the kids around, that I only took 3 pictures.  That's it.  Three.  I apologize for this one being sideways, but this is the fire whip guy; by far the most awesome attraction at the fair.  Or faire.

I like that I didn't take a picture of any of his tricks: the one where he used a huge bullwhip to whip roses out of a lady's mouth, the one where he did two whips at once upside-down and backwards, or the one (as his name suggests) where he LIT HIS WHIP ON FIRE and used it to whip things OFF HIS OWN HEAD.

No, I took a picture of when he was doing a silly crowd-working thing by making a phone call on some guy's phone.

It could be that I was too in awe of his whipping prowess to take any pictures but probably it was the children.  It's always the children.

These are the other two pictures I took.  It was pretty hot, like 90 degrees, and I felt bad for this guy dressed up as a tree, so we paid a dollar to take a picture with him.  Ethan and Nora were completely freaked out by him, and you can see Lillian is not so sure.

Other activities we enjoyed were: seeing acrobats, watching a glass blowing demonstration, eating a turkey leg, Tyler threw some axes, there was a merry-go-round, and a falconry show.  I wanted to get my hair done in a fancy braid but they wanted $25, so I passed.  We'll have to go back one day when our kids are older so we can watch all the other performers with their Elizabethan humor and puns.  I do love a good pun.

I wanted to go outside

Bat boxes

Every year as winter starts coming to a close, I start freaking out; summer is coming.  Summer is a time when we avoid the outside as much as possible.  A time when I grow weary of applying sunscreen and the smell of the pool.  A time when I just tell myself that I'm going to be sweaty for the next six months so I should just get used to it.

This year, the freak out is possibly more potent considering I've spent the last two months on the couch watching every episode of lots of shows.  All that time that we could have spent enjoying the glorious Arizona winter and the not-so glorious Arizona wilderness!  (It's very pokey.)

I made the decision that we'd go on a hike on Saturday, a decision that I knew was doomed to fail, but I wanted to try anyway.  The preparations took FOREVER because the children, I suspect, have formed a cabal to wage war against brushing teeth and putting on shoes.  Also, it had rained pretty hard in the early morning but looked like it was clearing up.  Maybe. Just in case, I decided we all needed rain-proof jackets.  This meant several minutes spent looking through boxes to find a slicky jacket with a hood that would fit Ethan.  "I get to wear PINK, just like Lillian!"

Before we even got on the freeway, it started pouring rain.  Like, monsoon-level downpour.  "Maybe it won't be raining over by the mountains," I offered.  Tyler knows better than to rain (haha) on my parade so he offered a quiet, "maybe."

Not only was it still pouring when we got to the mountain, but the website provided inaccurate directions (that's what I'm going with) so we couldn't find the trail head.  It looked sunny across the valley where Madera Canyon is, so we asked the kids if they wanted to find a different mountain, or if they wanted to go to the children's museum.  They all wanted a different mountain so we headed off across the valley.  It was a miracle; it rained and rained and rained our whole drive, and then cleared up a mile or so away from the canyon.  We were able to have a lovely hike and we didn't get rained on one time!

Beach Day

A lot of people in Arizona hate California: there's too many laws, too many liberals, too many taxes, gas is too expensive, houses are too expensive, the weather is always being better than our weather, you can't just go out and shoot guns wherever, etc.  However, as much as Arizonans complain about California, everybody loves the beach.  Everybody.

I love California and I can't wait to move back there (someday), and I especially love the beach. While we were there, my stepmother graciously offered to accompany me to Little Corona.

This allowed us to have a completely stress-free trip because I didn't have to cart everyone to the bathrooms every 10 minutes, just one kid at a time.

So precious.  

They are finally reaching an age where they are starting to realize that the long-sleeved swim shirts are uncool.  Too bad.  They will wear them until they are old enough to do a reasonably good job applying their own sunscreen.  So... college?

Thank you, Jeri for making this moment possible.

Kartchner Caverns

My in-laws were here for a week and so we did a whole hecka-lotta things, most of which I failed to get pictures of because I was chasing after one kid or another. One thing that we did and that I did take at least some pictures of is head down to Kartchner Caverns.

The caves are "alive" so you are not allowed to touch anything.  Or take pictures.  Or touch the curbs on the side of the walkway, or let your clothes touch the curbs.  Or talk or complain that you hate the caves while the fussy tour guide is talking (Ethan, I'm looking at you).

Photo appropriated from Arizona State Parks

This is what the formations look like.  It's very pretty, and also impressive how much work two U of A grad students did to keep this thing a secret while trying to get it turned into a state park before it fell victim to vandals and thieves.  The tour was fun for the kids, but a little over their heads what with the guide going on and on about how carbon dioxide dissolved the limestone to form the cave, and the barometric pressure of the cave, and the minerals contained in the various colors of the rock, etc.  I would give a green light to those 5 and over.  What I really wanted to do (Ethan as well) was to climb off the path and wander around, but I think what with the no touching policy, I would have been arrested.

Budding cavers inside the visitor's center

Ethan mostly just wanted to play with the lockers and cried when I dragged him away

After this, I took the two littler kids home for naps while Mark and Darlene took Lillian down to Tombstone.  I was skeptical that they would last very long as it was already pushing 100 at 11:30, but they didn't come back until 6 or so.  I presume they saw gunfights, wandered around Boot Hill, and saw the courthouse.  I know there was sarsaparilla involved (which who knew was spelled like that?) but I didn't see any pictures, so these reports cannot be independently verified.

Thanks for coming Darlene and Mark, and thanks for doing all the dishes while you were here.  Seriously, that was amazing.

Unsinkable Molly ... uh... spider

A few days ago, I put the kids in the bath.  They all three fit, sort of.  There's the usual elbowing and Lillian always wants to lay down forcing the other two to curl up in the corners, but it's fine mostly.  Tyler came up and said he'd wash them, so I went out to fold laundry.  I could hear the usual arguing over toys and space, then they started screaming... like... scared for your life screaming.  I ran back in expecting blood, but instead saw Tyler trying scoop this guy out of the tub.

"MOM," Nora screamed.  "It crawled out of this toy and then it crawled on my leg!"

After we took the picture, Tyler turned on the faucet and washed it down the drain.  Five minutes later, it crawled back out.  Ewww.

Just in case this was some sort of mutant undrownable spider, Tyler squished it with a shoe.

Ward campout

In August, we geared up for our second ever family ward campout.  If you don't remember, our first attempt at the ward campout was an unmitigated disaster which made it on to my top-10-worst-night's-sleep list.

This time, we pulled out the big guns- we borrowed our neighbor's 8-man tent and brought the port-a-crib.  I think it paid off.  My kids slept all night.  The ward children?  Not so much.

Have I told you about how our ward has over 100 kids in it?  At any given second, at least one of those kids was crying.  All. Night. Long.

I would hear someone crying, wake up thinking it was Ethan, remember that he was sleeping 2 inches from my head and that he would be much louder if indeed he was crying, and then try to fall back asleep.

Repeat 500 times.

Also my kids woke up at 5, hence the only pictures I have are of the sunrise.  We were the only ones awake and out of our tent.

It does give me hope that if we went with just our family, or maybe one other family, we could manage a pretty decent night.  Maybe.

Mt. Lemmon is usually about 10-15 degrees cooler than Tucson proper, which is really nice on normal mid-year days when it's 100 degrees in the city.  However, we went when there was a heat wave and it was 112 in the city, thus 100 on the mountain.  We had planned to hang around and do some hiking, but hiking with our kids is bad enough, there was no way we were going to attempt it with the triple digit heat.

Sonora Desert Museum

Tyler's parents came to visit for a week some time in September, I think.  During which time, we finally got a proper visit to the Sonora Desert Museum.  We have tried to go on multiple occasions but were foiled every time.

The Desert Museum isn't really a museum, it's like 30% museum, 70% zoo, but with only animals from the Sonoran Desert in it.

Tucson has a lot of bats.  I love bats.

I think it has a lot of fossils too.  Here's the little area where you can discover a dinosaur.

This picture is sideways because I was holding the camera at a funny angle.  Isn't she precious?

Somehow this was the only animal picture I managed to take.  It's a mountain lion.  I think I had my camera out because I was hoping that the mountain lion would pounce on the squirrel that wandered into the pen.  He didn't.  He just watched and watched.

Also at the Desert Museum, you can learn all about the 5,000 different snakes and insects that live here, like the kissing beetle that likes to eat the soft, thin skin on your face and mouth while you sleep.  Welcome to Arizona.

When we first moved here, I was pretty sure that the environment was doing everything in it's power to kill me.  From scorpions to kissing beetles and jumping cholla, I knew I would be dead in 5 minutes if I ever got lost out there.  Now that I've learned a few of her secrets, I think I would last at least 45.

Thanks for visiting Mark and Darlene.  We'll see you at Thanksgiving.

Ostrich Farm, Part 2

As promised, the monster truck.  OK, I'm a few days late... see what happened was I was planning on writing Sunday's, Monday's and Tuesday's posts on Sunday, because I worked Monday and Tuesday.  But, actually I worked Sunday and Monday, and so I didn't get a chance.  I was about to promise to post extra, but we'll see.

 There were goats.  Oh my, were there goats.  These were the kind with creepy-looking rectangular irises.  But the kids wanted to stay and feed them all day long, which I think would have been fine by the goats.

We need to get one of these for the backyard.

All right, enough with the goats already.  They also had lorikeets.   Admit it, you didn't see that one coming.

They gave you little cups of something they called nectar to feed them.  The lorikeets are not shy or very nice, and they get very mad if you try to pet them.

If you come visit us, we'll totally take you.

Ostrich Farm!

Last month, Tyler decided we needed to go to the ostrich farm.  It's about 45 minutes away from our house right next to Picacho Peak.  I've driven past it maybe 20 times thinking it would be fun, but I never felt like driving that far.  Then, a family in our ward went and posted pictures on Facebook, and just like that, Tyler decided it was high time we went out there.

 They have many different kinds of animals at the Rooster Cogburn ostrich farm, and you can feed all of them.  You start out with these nice deer.

By the way, Ethan has no fear.  He climbs up the ladder on the big kid slides, the loopy-twisty kind that Lillian isn't even all that keen on, and goes down face first making all the other moms at the park nervous.

  Then you have mini donkeys.  This isn't the first encounter I've had with mini donkeys.  Somehow, I'm really fuzzy on the details, my Chinese friend Patrick's parents, who now live in Hong Kong, lived for a short time in the unspecified past in San Luis Obispo, where I went to school and met Patrick.  During their time there, they somehow befriended a couple who own a mini donkey farm out in the sticks by Templeton, not really all that close to SLO.  They became good enough friends that this couple hosted a BBQ in their honor every time they visited the states.

Being friends with Patrick, I had the privilege of being invited to a few of these occasions, which always left me puzzled and not able to get a straight answer of how this relationship was formed.

But the mini donkeys were always great.  These ones were greedy and nipped at the kids fingers.

Again, Ethan didn't care.

 And then come the ostriches.

 I was not brave enough to feed the ostriches out of my hand.  There were signs all around warning that they bite.  For chickens like me, they had little tubes that went through the fence.

 For those brave enough, the ostriches can get over that fence, no problem.

They also have monster truck tours of the desert.  I'm only posting half our pictures today as a) I have a lot and b) I'm afraid I'm going to run out of things to write about before NaPoBloMo is over.  The point is that I didn't get a picture of the outside of the monster truck until right before we left, so you'll see it tomorrow.

The tour was fun and informative.  I now know more about ostriches than I ever wanted plus, I learned that barrel cactuses tilt SSE.

Yes, this picture is in the running for the worst shot of my family.  But you get to go ostrich fishing on the monster truck tour, which was fun.

Basically, they stick quartered grapefruit on a nail on a rope on a pole, and you tease the ostriches with it.

Then they get it and swallow it whole.  You can watch the lump move all the way down their throat.  Check out that ostrich's neck on the right there.  The kids thought it was great, until Nora dropped her pole.  That was devastating.