Hello From Quarantine

 

Hello from quarantine.

I just finished Becoming by Michelle Obama, and it gave me like a lot of feelings.

I felt like Michelle was Dr Paul Stubbs from Star Trek telling me that, " [I] will never come up against a greater adversary than [my] own potential." Do you guys remember that episode? Probably not- I only know it because my husband is watching The Next Generation with the kids and I happened to catch this one. Dr. Paul Stubbs is a sort of mega-genius astrophysicist who is running a project on The Enterprise. He meets Wesley Crusher and recognizes in him a fellow wunderkind and gives him a word of caution. He told Wesley that he felt the burden of being a high achiever, and that he would constantly need to top his last accomplishment to keep up with his potential. Except he says it with the emphasis on the first syllable: PO-ten-tial.

Bob Kelso dropping Trek knowledge

Obama's central thesis is that she is an ordinary person who took her situation and applied grit, smarts, planning, energy, and focus and turned it into something extraordinary. That the reader, me, you, every ordinary person could do this.  I determined a long time ago that my children have sapped me of whatever hustle I had. I have to work really really hard just to keep up with all the meals, track meets, science homework (do YOU remember how to determine how many valence electrons are in any given element?), and messes that come with raising 4 kids. So many messes. Plus a dog. It feels unfair to me that she would tell me that I could do more.

Maybe this book wasn't the best pick to read during quarantine. Where all my volunteer opportunities are extinguished and my already very limited social circle shrunk down to my five immediate family members. Plus a dog.

Instead of thinking about PO-ten-tial, with a capital P and the emphasis on the first syllable: First Lady starting several world-wide initiatives, staff of 50, with a personal hairdresser and stylist kind of PO-ten-tial; and just work on being me+1.  Meaning- how I am today, just one point better. I don't have the drive to live Michelle Obama's life, but I can live my life. Plus one. And a dog.

Phineas and Ferb Changed My Life

Last summer, I had a bad attitude, or maybe I was actually clinically depressed?  It was the heat.  I can handle it being hot in the summer.  I cannot, however, handle it being hot in the spring and fall as well.  If the triple digits would mind their manners and stay in their own season, we wouldn't be so much at odds.

Anyway, things started unraveling fast about September.  I remember one specific day, I was in my car, waiting at a light to turn onto the freeway, and the theme song from Phineas and Ferb came on.  This was the extended, album-release by Bowling for Soup and it's actually called "Today Is Gonna Be A Great Day"

There's a part where they sing:

This could possibly be the best day ever
And the forecast says that tomorrow will likely be a million and six times better.
So make every minute count: jump up, jump in and seize the day.
And let's make sure that in every single possible way...
Today is gonna be a great day.

This was the opposite of what I was doing.  My days were not the best days ever.  I was laying down quietly, waiting to be burned to a crisp by the blinding Arizona sun.  (Seriously, though, there is no cloud cover ever, so the sun is always in my eyes... even if it's cold outside.)  I needed to do something to make sure that in every single possible way my summers would be great.

I sort of snapped that day and announced to Tyler that I was leaving next summer.

"So... we're getting a divorce...?" he asked.
"No no no, I love you.  I'm just not going to live here."
"You're moving forever...?"
"I don't know."
"Where are you going?"
"I don't know.  All I know is that I won't be here."

My first plan was that I would get a job as a summer camp nurse and take my children with me.  Tyler said he could come with us and work remotely during those weeks and watch the kids during the day.  I applied with several camps and got accepted at a camp in Maine.

I didn't end up doing this because it seemed likely that Tyler would get a job in California AND HE DID!  We leave in a few weeks and I am beyond excited and grateful once again to Phineas and Ferb for making the world a better place.

Uphill battle

I think about motherhood pretty much all day, every day, because that's what I do all day, every day.  Yesterday, I was considering the fact that children really are sociopaths.  They are the most important person in their universe, the only person in their universe, really.

In church, you learn that you should be like a little child, but this makes no sense- children are the greediest, meanest, least sensitive, little megalomaniacs out there.

My day sounds like this:



except times 4 and all day long.

One of my children made their bed yesterday without being asked and I was shocked.  SHOCKED.  This particular child has only ever made their bed without multiple requests, threats, taking away of marbles (we use marbles as a sort of point system, which they can earn and then "spend" on privileges like frozen yogurt and stuff), and being locked in their room until it is made.  It made me realize that my kids rarely do anything positive on their own.  They are programmed to be little chaos machines and fight tooth and nail when you try to get them to do anything non-destructive.

So, why did I have four kids?

It doesn't make sense.  I hate staying home all day.  I get resentful over the fact that I really can't work because paying for child care for 4 kids is pretty much equal to what I make.  I still could go, because I'd be getting out of the house and building my career, but it's a lot of work to balance all that child care and carpooling and who is going to make Lillian practice the piano?  As Liz Lemon says, "Murphy Brown LIED to us!"  For me personally, I can't have it all.  So, I grudgingly accept that this is the bed I made and now I'm sleeping in it, but I hate it.

So, I've come up with some theories about why I had so many kids.

1. There are 7 kids in my family and I LOVE having so many siblings.  I loved it growing up, and I love it now that I'm an adult.  I miss my brothers and sisters dearly and wish wish wish I lived closer to them.  I wanted to recreate that for my kids, and I hope that they grow up and are friends like us.  And I need at least one of them to take care of me when I'm old.

2. They do satisfy a biological need.  There is something deep down inside of me that gets immense pleasure from my children.  Deep inside.  Watching them sleep, you forget every crappy thing they did during the day, and the fact that you called your mother when you were on the verge of losing it and cried "I SWEAR THEY'RE DOING IT ON PURPOSE," and the fact that you swore you were done after that last kid and you whisper, "I want more kids."
     2.1 I read in Do Chocolate Lovers Have Sweeter Babies that baby smiles are evolutionarily engineered             to get us to fall in love with our babies, and I tell you- it works.

3.  I can't discount the social pressure of being Mormon.  Formally, there is nothing specifically taught about how many children you should have, just that you should have some because families are important.  Very important.  But, culturally, big families are the norm.  I do not regret marrying young and having Lillian at a young age, but that really wouldn't have happened if I wasn't Mormon where everyone marries young and has babies at a young age.  If I wasn't Mormon, I can't say for sure that I'd have 4 kids.

4.  For all their sociopathic tendencies, they really are hilarious.  They say funny stuff and their emotions are so real and pure.  There is no feeling like seeing them scream with pure joy when they unwrap that perfect gift on Christmas morning.

So for all the times when I despise staying at home, I remind myself that this too shall pass, and one day, I'll be surrounded by my warm, caring, happy, well-adjusted, loving children and grandchildren.  Right?  RIGHT?

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.

 

Target FAIL

I decided to take all 4 kids to Target to do Lillian's back-to-school shopping and get a few miscellaneous items like light bulbs and C batteries.  I fed all the kids; they all went to the bathroom; I fed the baby; I changed her diaper; I had a water bottle (a must for Arizona); I had extra diapers, wipes, and an extra onesie; I had emergency granola bars; I made a list and I stuck a pen in my hair so Lillian could check off the items and (hopefully) not bother her siblings.  Target is about 20 minutes away, so if Evie has to eat every 2 hours, we have a little over an hour to get this all done and get back home before I have to feed her.  I would be like the Delta Strike Force.  In and out.  No messing around.  I expected it to go very poorly.

The actual shopping went as good as could be expected: of course Lillian took freaking forever to pick out a present for her friend's birthday and Ethan announced he had to go poo when we were on the exact opposite side of the store.  I don't know what his deal is, but he takes like 20 minutes to do his business and announces multiple times that he's finished, but then quickly recants.  "I'm done!" I open the door.  "I'm not done! Go away!" Repeat at least 4 times.  The girls were less than thrilled to be stuck in the bathroom for 20 minutes and told me so.  A few times.

You know how you can feel when it starts falling apart?  Evie started screaming when I was looking for the light bulbs.  Ethan was climbing like the uncoordinated monkey he is, winning me disapproving tuts from passersby.  Nora ran off to look at the headbands.  Lillian was unsuccessfully trying to mother the other two kids and it was giving her anxiety and making her freak out, plus the other kids don't like being mothered by her so they were freaking out.

We got to the checkout and I was mentally stabbing the man who ran to shimmy his way in front of me in line while bouncing the screaming Evie (a-RAH a-RAH a-RAH) and yelling at Ethan to get down for heaven's sake.  I threw our items on the conveyor and the checker, sensing the urgency of the situation, began scanning like a madman.  I reached into my purse to get my wallet and found only extra diapers, wipes, and the extra onesie.  No wallet.

Then I remembered I had taken it out to get the number for the credit card customer service and put it on the table.

I maybe screamed a little.

What a difference a pill makes

A friend stopped by to see the baby.  As he was holding her he asked, "So, is she totally your favorite right now?"  Bizarrely, for me, I could answer yes!  She is!

When my other babies were infants, I felt like I was stuck in a babysitting job that never ended... and that's all I felt.  Other moms talked about this magic bonding love that exploded inside of them when they saw their infants for the first time.  My first thoughts were much like Bill Cosby- "I just gave birth to a lizard."

With Lillian, I attributed my lukewarm attitude to the fact that I was sailing in uncharted waters, largely alone.  I lived away from my family and Tyler and I were the only people in our group of friends to be married, let alone have a kid.  Tyler was working to finish his degrees and was gone a lot.  Then it was just me and the kid.  All. Day. Long.  Very lonely, who wouldn't be a little depressed?

With Nora, I attributed it to the fact that I was, once again, very alone.  We had moved to Arizona in the middle of my pregnancy and I didn't have very many friends by the time that she came along.  Plus, she cried a lot.  A lot.  Who wouldn't feel a little ground down by a baby that won't stop crying, especially when you have a total of 3 friends... none of whom you know very well.

With both of those kids, I mostly just hid and cried and cried some more and then it got better and I decided that I loved them with that heart-exploding love that everyone talked about.  Then we had Ethan.

Nora was only 19 months old when Ethan was born.  It was summer, which is my darkest time of year anyway.  Tyler's company was laying off people left and right, which was stressful.  I had just decided to go back to school to finish my degree and started online classes a few weeks before he was born.  The stress and hormones outstripped my coping abilities.  I sunk into full-blown post-partum depression.  Tyler suggested that I call the doctor and I cried for two days just thinking about it.  I never thought about hurting my kids, and I wasn't afraid that they would come take my kids away, I was mostly afraid of admitting a weakness.

In Mormon theology, gender is an inseparable part of one's identity and I was raised to believe that I was a mother by design and that the bearing of children is part of my eternal calling.  To aid me in this calling, I was endowed with all the attributes I would need to be successful... and here I was, failing.  I felt like I was defective.  I cried and cried.

Eventually, I called the doctor and started on an anti-depressant.  The nature of the pills is that they take about two weeks before they start working, and I was amazed at how much better I felt.  It was magical.  I all of a sudden could handle the stress.  I loved my baby.  I could think clearly.

This time around, I asked for a prescription when I left the hospital.  The past few days, the blues were starting to creep in, but now, after taking the medication for two weeks, I'm feeling much better.  And I get it now: I can sit and look at Evelyn for hours while she is sleeping and I feel like my heart is going to burst.

Mostly miserable

My mom is letting me borrow these little reader books for Nora.  I learned how to read from these things and I remember them very fondly.  My mom was, at first, very hesitant to let me have them because they are out of print and IRREPLACEABLE, but I pulled out the sucker-punch "it's for your grandkids!" line and she relented.

Nora loves them as well, which warms my heart.  The books have an adult page and a child page, and sometimes Lillian will sit with her and read "little words" (as in small type) and Nora will read the "big words."  It's super cute... for like 10 seconds until they start arguing because Nora isn't reading the words exactly right or Lillian isn't singing the songs or doing the voices the way I do.

Other than that, I mostly just sit around, being in labor but not actual labor which makes me very cranky.  I try to tell myself that every contraction (which I have all day long every day) brings me closer to delivery; like every pregnancy has a finite number of contractions needed to push the baby out, and instead of being in labor for 3 days like I was with Lillian (which was the only kid of mine where I didn't have this 4-month long labor thing), I can just be in regular labor for 8 or so hours.

At least that's what I tell myself to keep me from going insane.  Oh, did I mention that I am still nauseated?  Yeah, so there's that, too.

 Also, I'm bigger now than I was with any of the other kids, as evidenced by the fact that I have grown out of all but ONE pair of shorts and most of my shirts.  Also, it's a million degrees here.  Unless I have to leave the house, I can be found wearing one of Tyler's t-shirts and just underwear.  I went to book club last night and Lillian advised me that I better put pants on before leaving, "because THAT would be embarrassing" if I went in my standard pants-less uniform.

Part time party

An old picture of the hospital.  Patients call the new 6-story building the "nice" part of the hospital and always lament when they have to come to the "old" part of the hospital, where I work.

I love working part time.

When I think back to when I just had one child, the prevailing emotional memory is B O R E D O M.  Sure I loved my kid and found joy in taking care of her, but seriously, you can't tell me that playing Ele-fun is intellectually stimulating.

Then I got a job, a full-time job.  And, I was no longer bored.

Full time is 3 12-hour shifts per week.  Plus a staff meeting once a month, plus I do some monthly audits, plus whatever other training or meetings I have to go to.  This was all manageable, kind of, until Lillian started 1st grade.

 I sent an email to Mrs. B like the 3rd day of school and said that Lillian was having a really hard time focusing doing her homework (suggested time to spend on homework: 30 minutes.  Time Lillian was taking: 1.5-2 hours) and did she have any suggestions.

She replied something like "Oh, it's just the beginning of school, she'll settle down and work it out."

A few days later, I got another email. "Yeah... so... Lillian is having a hard time..."  This was while we were in Hawaii, and the next day was back-to-school night.  My mother went and told Mrs. B to send home any work Lillian didn't complete in school.  And she did.

Let's just say that I started to long for the days of 1.5 hours of homework each day.  Tyler doesn't get home until 5 and then has to feed the kids, and then start homework and somehow have the kids in bed by 8 so they won't be dead the next day.

It went from manageable to overwhelming very quickly.  I scaled back to 2 days a week and it's pretty wonderful.  Turns out, subtracting 24 hours from my week helps me to strike the perfect balance between being busy but still having enough time to relax and read or watch season 2 of Sherlock on Netflix.  I feel good about my work commitments and I feel like I get to spend a lot of time with my kids.

I always thought I'd be a stay-at-home mom.

Silly Poem

I must be starting to lose it. This morning while I was nursing Ethan at 5:30 as I was drifting in and out of sleep, my thoughts started moving to the rhythm of the rocking chair. This was more or less what my half-asleep brain came up with:

Runny noses,

Snotty faces.

Hints of urine waft through

Certain places.

Sticky fingers,

Gummy smiles.

I feel my heart

Stretch out for miles.

Endless cleaning,

PB&J.

At least one person

Crying all day.

The heart is a house

With many rooms.

Look, my children

One for each of you.

Toy Purge

Lillian likes to explode her toys; she pulls out the bins and dumps them out in rapid succession. I think this is fairly common, but it drives me absolutely crazy.

On Monday, I told Lillian that I would help her clean up the toy room for 30 minutes, and whatever wasn't picked up, we were going to take to DI. "Oh good, let's take them all," came her reply.

No, really. You will never. see. them. again. "I know mom, let's do it! I'll find a box."

I helped her clean up by walking around and saying things like, "OK, let's find all the cars and put them into the car bin. Oh! I see another one over here!" and when the timer went off, she had only picked up about 2/3 of the toys.

So, I did it. It was kind of an empty threat at the time, but I knew I had to follow through. I got a big box and Lillian was very enthusiastic about putting the toys in. I saved a few prized toys and parts of sets (I rescued a few of Handy Manny's tools and some errant puzzle pieces), but everything else went in the box. I tried to make Lillian feel some sort of loss by pointing out the toys as I put them in, but it didn't work. She didn't care, and as far as I can tell, she hasn't missed them.

I like her not having very many toys as it brings out more of her creativity. In the top picture you can see our well-loved Weeble-Wobble tree house. This has alternatively served as a tree house, cash register, carnival ride, doll house, baby crib, grocery store, and stove.

This picture is what remains of the Wonder Pets mobile that Lillian and the neighbor boy made yesterday. It had a sail made out of a triangle of paper and a pen, but I think Nora destroyed that part. I cut out the sail and gave them the tape, and they constructed it all themselves. They were pretending that the afore mentioned Weeble-Wobbles were the Wonder Pets and came up with all sorts of elaborate rescue scenarios. I tend to think that this sort of creativity is good for their brains, thus making the toy purge win-win by forcing more creativity and resulting is less toys for me to clean up.

Pencil thing

The pencil thing always makes Nora laugh.

Untitled from Amanda Ball on Vimeo.

Fickle and mercurial child. I like that she goes from laughing to demanding that I stop, and then back to laughing again.

No (wo)man can serve two masters

How are things? I haven't heard from you in a while. Just calling to see how you are doing. How's school? You haven't updated your blog in a long time, have you been busy?

I have never been this busy in my entire life. The whole thing. Never.

I have two full-time jobs:

My mom job involves taking care of 3 children 4 and under. I get them up in the morning; I make all their meals (except I switched to store-bought baby food for Ethan. Best. Decision. Ever.); I am in charge of all their bathroom needs and I have to monitor the cleanliness of their underwear/diapers; I make sure they get enough naps, that they are engaged and active while awake, that they are learning and growing; I make sure they maintain a good balance between socialization and quiet time; I help them learn how to do chores; I clean all their clothes and wash all their dishes (except the dinner dishes); I pick up toys, dust, vacuum, sweep, mop, and scrub toilets; I plan all their meals and buy all the food they eat, while making sure they eat a variety of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains; I keep them clean and groomed by washing faces, brushing teeth, giving baths, brushing hair, and keeping track of endless hair bows; I am in charge of making sure they are safe by watching them as much as possible to make sure they don't run into the street, get into a stranger's car, eat dishwasher soap, touch the hot stove, sit on each other's faces, etc; etc.

My school job involves reading, reading, and more reading; researching things like how to get college students to increase their condom usage or whether or not educating expectant fathers on breastfeeding techniques will increase exclusive breastfeeding rates at 3 months postpartum; writing 1 or 2 8- to 10-page papers per week; going on "field trips" like going to a rehab facility for prostitutes, visiting an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, or going to a grocery store in a low socioeconomic part of town to research food disparities; watching lectures; making power points; more reading; completing about 5,000 self-study modules put out by the CDC about things like intimate partner violence and arsenic poisoning; watching about 8,000 documentaries on the health-wealth gradient; and more reading.

Now, do them together. Oh yeah, and my baby forgot how to sleep through the night. So, I do all this while sleep deprived.

Also, about 2 weeks ago, my kids were exposed to the neighbor girl who was later diagnosed with RSV. It looked like this for about a week in my house:

Except with more crying and whining, plus a sick baby.

Sleepless Night

Last night, while not in the top 5, was for sure in the top 10 worst night's sleep.

9:30 Fell asleep watching a webinar from The Council to Improve Food Outbreak Response.

10:00 Tyler woke me up suggesting I move to the bed, apparently I declined.

11:00 I went upstairs.

11:30 Ethan woke up with a fever and a cough. He coughed so much, he puked on me.

12:15 Ethan cried in his crib until he fell back asleep.

3:00 Both girls had to go to the bathroom; Tyler handled this one.

6:00 Ethan woke up again. I fed him so he would go back to sleep.

7:15 Ethan was up for the day.

To top it all off, Tyler was having so me sort of exothermic reaction going on, so he was about 500˚ next to me (it's not a fever, it happens to him kind of a lot, I think it's how he stays so skinny). I also had a crazy dream where my friend Michelle was on a French cooking show talking about how to make roast duck, but she was acting like Dan Akroyd acting like Julia Child.

I've cut the dickens out of my finger.

The little ones

As I was procrastinating writing/reading any number of school things, I was looking through old blog posts of Lillian when she was a baby. I posted a lot of pictures of her doing cute things. Eating. Sleeping. Laughing.

Why don't I do that with my other kids?

I should start.

Nora was sad about something. Lillian stole a toy? Got in trouble for trying to climb the bookshelf? Wanted ice cream for lunch? Who knows? To fix it, I told her we'd take her picture. You can see the glistening tear remnants under her eyes.

Ethan sits now. I know, it snuck up on me too. A few days ago, I realized that, as he is sitting now, I should stop waiting for him to chunk up. Sitting is just weeks away from crawling, which means crawling up the stairs and pulling up and burning calories, and it is just a few months away from walking. This is the stage that Lillian and Nora started thinning out.

While I'm sad that he never chunked out, I'll still keep him.

Because he's so cute, sometimes you just want to squeeze him and laugh maniacally.

Go upstairs and come back with a different attitude

I woke up a little off today. Usually, I'm really patient with the kids until about 4 or 5 (which is good because Tyler comes home at 5 or 5:30), but Lillian started right up I'm coooooooooooold!! I'm huuuuuuuunnnnngry. I don't waaaaaaant oatmeal. Nora hiiiiiiiiit me. and I couldn't handle it. I was snapping at her left and right and threatening to spank her bottom if she didn't quit whining. Usually the I'm-going-to-spank-your-bottom threat doesn't come out unless things get really bad.

I took a step back and said to myself in my best mom voice, "you need to go upstairs and come back down with a better attitude." So, I did. I shut myself in the bathroom (while Nora very helpfully slid some magazines and small toys under the door, in case I got bored), sat on the edge of the tub, said a little prayer, and thought for a minute.

Sometimes, I feel like I'm stuck in the movie Planes, Trains, and Automobiles as the Steve Martin character, and my kids are collectively the John Candy character. In the movie, Steve Martin is trying to get home for Thanksgiving, but things keep happening, some natural (there's a blizzard and his plane is re-routed) and some (most) are caused by the John Candy character: he spills beer on the bed, he gets them into a car accident, he lights the car on fire, etc. This is my life.

I was trying to make dinner yesterday while talking to my friend Myriah, and during our short conversation (I called her because Tyler was running late and I was starting to go crazy), there were like 10 different disasters: Nora and Lillian were fighting over the slinky and then stretched it out, which caused a separate melt down all it's own, Nora had to go to the bathroom 3 or 4 times, then she needed her jacket off RIGHT THEN, then it was WHY, OH WHY DID YOU TAKE MY JACKET OFF, I HATE YOU, then Ethan was crying and Lillian was saying, "MOM THE BABY IS CRYING" over and over again, plus there was the "Mom, mom, mom, I'm hungry. Mom, I don't want to eat that. Mom, I'm huuuuuuungry. Mom, I haaaaaate broccoli soup."

At the end of the movie, Steve Martin and John Candy are good friends and can laugh about it all, which is how I felt last night watching Nora do her little dance to the "L says llllll, L says llllll" song that the alphabet toy plays. It was so cute, my heart about exploded.

But the underlying frustration is still there. I'm frustrated that I can't get anything done. And by anything, I don't mean like... I can't volunteer for Doctors Without Borders or Literacy Volunteers of Tucson, both things I really want to do, but realized a long time ago it wasn't my season of life. I'm talking about the fact that I tried for 3 hours yesterday to mop my floor, something that should only take 45 minutes at the most, and it still didn't get done. Plus, Lillian dumped two pocket's full of sand out right after I had finished sweeping.

I know, I know. It will get easier, but for today, it is hard. And, I need a better attitude.

This shouldn't be that hard

I was making cupcakes for Nora's birthday (holy crap, she's two). I wanted to halve my cake recipe because I only wanted 12 cupcakes. First item: 3/4 cup butter. I remembered the visual up on Mr. Malloy's wall in AP Calculus that some student had drawn of the denominator of the fraction smashing through the bigger division line and multiplying itself by the divisor. Make sense? No? In this case, the 4 of the 3/4ths would grow arms and smash through the line drawn below it to find the 2 waiting. It would be so happy that they would hug and multiply in a completely plutonic sense to make 3/8ths. (If the two was a fraction, it's own denominator would feel stilted by the numerator's newfound love that it would grow wings and fly up to the three on top of the whole problem, and it's life would have meaning again. Why no, I didn't pursue a career in math, why do you ask?)

Luckily for me, the butter stick is divided into eight tablespoons (eighths!), so I went to go cut 3 tablespoons off. I looked again and thought that 3 tablespoons looked a little small. I looked at my math again. Sure enough, 3/8ths is the answer, so 3 tablespoons.

I could not figure out where I had gone wrong. I puzzled about it for a while, then decided to come at the problem from a different angle: 3/4 cup butter is 12 tablespoons, so to halve it, I wanted 6.

I called my mom to see what had failed in my calculations. We decided that my math was sound but that I had forgotten that a stick of butter (the eight tablespoons in question) is only a half a cup.

And now, I feel dumb.

My Thankamony*

*Only funny if you're Mormon.

Yesterday, I did Sharing Time in Primary (like Sunday School for kids 3-11). We have over 100 kids in our Primary, so it's a little bit crazy. Actually, a lot crazy.

My lesson was about the gifts that Jesus Christ gives us. To introduce the topic I said, "Christmas is about giving......" then waited for the kids to raise their hands and answer "presents." But, a kid in the front row yelled out, "THANKS!"

"Um... I was going for presents, but you can say thanks too."

After it was all over, and my sanity returned, I started thinking about giving thanks, and I have a lot to be thankful for (this list is by no means inclusive):

1. My family. This includes ALL of my ever expanding clan. It starts out with my husband who is more awesome than I can say; includes my children who are healthy as horses, funny, cute, loving, and say besos instead of 'kisses' (Ethan can be included even though he's on my crap list for not sleeping because he is freakin' adorable); stretches out to my mom who, pending her feeling better, is going to watch my girls for 4 days while Tyler and I go to a wedding, and is always there to commiserate and offer good advice; and my brothers and sisters whom I wish wish wish I lived closer to. I think a lot about my family I've never met, my great-grandparents and think about how they had to have been good people, because they passed down their awesomeness to their kids, who passed it to their kids, who passed it to me, and I am free to pass it on to my kids. Thanks guys.
2. I'm thankful for my husband's job that pays for our house and food. I'm thankful that I get to stay home with my kids, even though they drive me crazy sometimes, I wouldn't want it any other way.
3. I'm thankful for the community I live in. We've got great neighbors and as most of us transplants, we're all bent on taking care of each other. Plus, when I see things like this:
   
   
   It makes me really glad I suffered through the 5 months of heat to get 80˚ Decembers.
4. I'm thankful for the neighbor girl who comes over and holds my baby so I can do the dishes and start dinner. She can talk your ears off, and sometimes shows up a little too much, but those 20-minute breaks she gives me are invaluable. Plus, yesterday she showed up with a big bag of brand-new, tags-still-on clothes from the Childrens' Place, in exactly Lillian's size that she says her mom bought last year for her cousin and forgot to mail.
5. I'm thankful that I get to work with the kids at church. It does get crazy, but I love those little guys.

My kids are freaking out, so that will have to be it for now. But I'm also thankful for food, especially this. So. Good.

But they're extinct!

Tyler sometimes gets irritated because I can't watch movies that are too scary and/or stressful or else I'll get nightmares. Sometimes, I get them anyway. Here's a rundown of the dreams I had last night:

1. Nora and I were held hostage in a men's bathroom by a man with a shotgun who had shot the other man in the bathroom with us and he was bleeding out and I was frantically trying to stop his bleeding, but he only spoke Spanish. "Mas despacio, por favor" was all I could remember how to say.

2. Tyler and I were spies or something in South America with our next-door neighbor Vic (who speaks Spanish) and we had to cross this busy 8-lane highway to get to the traveling circus on the other side. Instead of walking down to the corner, Tyler decided to just run across really fast, "It's what they do here," he said. He got hit right before he made it to the other side and I screamed "TYLER ARE YOU DEAD!?" over and over again. He wasn't and we stumbled into the circus where we were looking for this very attractive blonde woman. We saw her and she saw us, and she started to run. She ran into the nearby fortune teller tent and while we were arguing with her about how she had to come with us, a short-faced bear (pictured above) showed up and was trying to get in our tent to eat us. "BUT THEY'RE EXTINCT!" I yelled. "TELL THAT TO HIM!" Tyler yelled back. Then the baby woke me up.

3. I was in high school, and we were assigned a battle to reenact. I was assigned the Battle of Azízes, which a quick googling tells me is not a real thing. (There was a thing called the The Bloody Assizes wish is similar, no?) In the fictitious Battle of Azízes, a woman was captured as was going to be forced to marry her captor. She threw a rock at him when he dragged her before the phony priest. The prince was hiding in the shadows and was impressed with her spunk and killed the evil captor, rescued the fair maiden and they lived happily ever after (which, now that I think about it, is not really a battle). I recruited two of my friends for the project and I was to play the maiden fair. When we were rehearsing, we were going to use swords, but my friends decided it would be fun to use guns, like in Romeo & Juliet, the movie. One accidentally shot the other, and it turned into all-out gang warfare, and everyone had a gun but me. "Why didn't I bring my gun?" I thought. And right when I was getting shot at for starting this whole thing, I woke up.

When I told him about my dreams last night, he said, "So, can we watch stressful movies if you're going to get nightmares anyway?"

Babies

I think about babies a lot. I have a lot of babies. We just watched the movie Babies. Most all of my friends have had a baby at least within the past 5 years. Rachel (her baby is coming up on 2) was telling me about the The Business of Being Born, and I started thinking about how my babies were born. Ethan woke up at 5, and I laid awake for a long time after he went back to sleep trying to decide why I choose to have my babies the way I did (all 3 in the hospital with epidurals, 2 with pitocin). It would seem from my everyday track record that I would be first in line to have a natural birth: granola, cloth diapers, clothes line, tofu, compost pile, the works.

I decided it was because my pregnancies were so awful, I just wanted the baby out as quickly and as painlessly as possible. If I had to give birth tomorrow, I think I would be in my right mind enough that I would do it naturally. But, after 5 months of vomiting plus 4 more of [prodromal] labor while being gigantic and exhausted and everyone commenting that I must be due any day now, I am just done.

I kept thinking about this day on the beach. I was 8.9 months pregnant with Lillian. It was July and hot, so we went to Avila. I was laying on my side on a blanket reading Ethan Frome of all things when Tyler said, "Amanda, fix your suit, you're falling out."

"I don't care."

"I care! Everyone can see your boobs."

"I. Don't. Care."

And I didn't. Some freak sandstorm could have come and ripped my whole suit off and I would have lain there naked until I finished my book and was ready to leave.

I also had two thoughts about my doctors:

1. I'm really glad that they let me try to push Nora out instead of making me have an emergency c-section. Nora was facing the wrong way, and the doctor grabbed her head and turned her while I was pushing. My L&D nurse of a sister-in-law says that at her hospital, they usually make those women have c-sections as a matter of course.

2. I wish that I was more with it when I was having Ethan and I could have asked the doctor whether or not I really needed the Pitocin or if she just wanted the baby to be born so she could go home. I don't think that she would have done that, and every one of the 5,000 people who checked me as I was in triage said the baby was positioned funny, I just wish I would have asked.

SMACK

See more pictures of Ethan, and ogle my friend Phil's super photography skills here.

Things are going at our house. Where they are going, or what they are going to do when they get there is to be decided as soon as I can remember what day it is and/or when I get more than 3.5 hours of sleep in a row. We're going on day 17 here, not that I'm counting.

Ethan isn't colicky, most days, which I am very thankful for. He just does the usual baby things like not sleeping very much and needing to eat every 5 minutes, which is not very restful, especially when you have Nora the Destructor alternately destroying everything in our house, as her name would suggest, and needing more water. That girl is thirsty.

I had a little bit of the new-mom-crazies this past week and I felt like yelling and crying and hugging/hitting everybody. Saturday night, Ethan was awake from 2:30 until 6. I may have admitted that I was having some buyer's remorse and maybe said that I wanted to take him back. We went to church and I had Ehan in the wrap. A gaggle of kids ran up and asked if they could see the baby. I bent down and up ran Joey, he's 4, I think. Joey's mother had a baby last month, but the umbilical cord tore during labor causing extensive damage from blood loss. The baby died a week later.

"Your baby is beautiful, our baby died."

And then he scampered off as if he hadn't just blown me away.