May 2008

Today we went to the park, flew a kite, blew bubbles, had a picnic, shopped for a frame, ate ice cream, played at the toy store, watched Prince Caspian and then ate at a Mexican place. That was our day together. I’d write the details, but I am really tired.

Done about 8 loads of laundry.
Put away laundry.
Done dishes.
Picked up my room.
Cleaned the girl’s room twice.
Picked up the Living Room 4 times.
And I’ll tell you what the only room that is even close to clean is the bathroom (Steven did that one and we put those doorknob thingies on so Seporah can’t get in on them). I think I blew up last night, sorry. I mean in my mind Steven and I have 4 consecutive days off (we NEVER get that), so that means we should have a clean house, shouldn’t we, we have the time to clean it. Yeah we were pretty sick on Friday and Dad continued to be sick on Saturday and Sunday, but still. I don’t understand how when I look at the living room floor, there is an entire bag of popcorn dumped, 4 blankets, about 15 books, cereal, toys, styrofoam thingies, a screwdriver, 3 pillows, an entire thing of yellow stickies unstuck to each other, a pack of animal cards, and Seporah’s church dress there.

I read an article a couple days ago about the Perfect Body. Saying if we actually spent as much time as needed to have the ideal perfect body, we would be wasting so much of our lives and giving up so much in so many others area would it really actually be worth it? So I am going to try to apply this article to my house (no I don’t mean I’m just getting out of housework, you have no idea how much house work I actually do). At least for today and am going to ignore the mess and instead do something else Seporah and Felicity will appreciate. They don’t have a clue whether the house is messy or dirty.

Someday all my plates will match.
Someday there will be towels on the towel rods, not the bathroom floor.
Someday I will have the time to make a 4 course meal and actually eat it.
Someday my movie collection will contain something besides talking animals.
Someday I will be able to cross my Living Room without worrying about stepping on sharp objects.
Someday I’ll get my Master’s.
Someday I’ll be the Mother of the Bride (twice).
Today, I“m going to spend the entire day with my whole family.

I like Alanis Morissette. She’s coming out with a new cd June 10. I’m like yeah!

Olivia by Ian Falconer
Olivia is a very active toddler. A co-worker of mine read it and said, “I know why you like this book. It should be called Seporah not Olivia.” She was so right.

Moo Baa Lalala by Sandra Boynton
Anything by Ms. Boynton is great. I choose this one because Seporah helps me by doing all the animal sounds. Miss Karen got us the first book. We also really like But Not the Hippopotamus.

Baby Cakes by Karma and Sam Williams
Totally fun sing song book about my little babies.

Ollie the Stomper by Olivier Dunrea
Another active toddler, although this one is a duck not a pig.

Shake It Up, Bunny by Laura Driscoll and Norman Gorbaty
We don’t have the rattle that came with this book since we got it second hand. Another sing song book about a bunny.

Cookie Kisses by Abigail Tabby and Barry Goldberg
This one came from Grandma Pam and I mean there’s kisses in the title.

And what do you do as a parent when you’re sick?…

Exactly the same thing as if you weren’t sick, except you feel like crap while doing it.

I told Steven he was sick last time and I pampered him, so he better pamper me this time.

He listened for a total of 0.2 seconds and then went to the bathroom.

…drove a motorcycle
…met Sara face to face
…attended my first traditional wedding
…sucked at both Rockband and GuitarHero
…bought 3 pairs of shoes
…destroyed the newlyweds home (with the help of Seporah)
…learned how to make enchiladas and tater tot casserole
…drove/rode an SUV 762 miles
…spent A LOT of money on gas
…ate at The Olive Garden for the first time in about a year
…played the Rabbit game for Wii that my mom likes
…embarrassed Jason
…had a blast spending $120.83 on junk at Target
…dressed my daughters alike for the very first time
…played in a really cool park in Holtville
…slept in air conditioning while it was 86 degrees at 2am
…ate at Sonic for the first time
…changed about 25 diarrhea diapers
…realized how old I was when we stayed up until 1am with the boys and then got up at 6am with the girls
…only checked my email once
…watched Cars 8 times
…introduced the girls to their Great-Grandfather
…laughed until my sides were sore at Apples to Apples
…did not take anywhere near enough pictures

It was pretty cool.

Well, we all know Jason is getting married at the end of the week. Exciting time for him and all… We will be leaving for Holtville, Ca tomorrow and I will try to keep you all updated as to how it all goes. I am sure Märia will want to tell you all how wonderful Target and the Olive Garden is. =)

So Mother’s Day has come. I realized it last Sunday and I was like, yes, Steven’s gotta have something good for me planned. Me being the ever forgetful person did NOT send my mother a Mother’s Day card (I also neglected my one and only nephew’s birthday on the 8th and almost forgot my wedding anniversary on the 3rd but I ordered Steven’s stuff 6 weeks in advance so I was cool). So I thought I would write a post to tell everyone how MY mom is the best mom in the whole world (hopefully she’ll forget about the forgotten card that way, besides she’s got 3 other kids someone should have remembered to send her a card, right?)

It’s said that a mother and daughter’s relationship changes when the daughter has a child herself. That now the daughter understands what it means to be a mother and can put her own mother into a whole new light. Well sorry mom, I didn’t think of you any differently once I had Seporah, I thought you were pretty cool before hand and afterwards. Besides Seporah was the easiest baby in the world, what was so tough about this motherhood business? It took until I had 2 children to realize that you qualify for sainthood. It took until I had one terrible two and one colicky baby to realize my mom deserved a direct entry to the Celestial Kingdom for not killing any of us.

Between the four of us, Russell, Jeremy, Josh and I, we kept my mom hopping. One of us was colicky, 2 of us spent months in the NICU, 2 of us were crazy active toddlers, we won’t even go into the school-age or teenager years categories. And I mean, come on, there was 4 of us and one of her (plus Dad). She’d still take all of us to the coolest kid’s places even though we out numbered her. And even though we didn’t have a lot of money when I was a kid she’d still find ways to take us to the Kaleidoscope Museum, the amusement park, the water park, the library (I developed a love of reading in a large part to her), every park under the sun, and Disneyland (oh, man have I been to Disneyland, it took until I was much older to realize that most people don’t go there once every 1-2 years).

My mom was was a pretty Hip Mom. She listened to the Top 40 (and still knows all the words to all the cool songs). She dressed like a peacock (as opposed to a Dawdy Mormon Housewife, ha inside joke). She would answer all of our questions (and yes I do mean THOSE questions). She was cool like a friend, but not TOO cool, she was still the mom and knew that. I got disciplined when needed, she says it wasn’t nearly as much as Russell or Jeremy, hehehe.

She cleaned the house and she cleaned the house and she cleaned the house and then she did it some more and well it never quite got clean due to the 4 of us just trailing right behind her. And then she cooked breakfast and then she cooked lunch and then she cooked dinner (and possibly dessert) to a group of people, one of which probably turned our nose up each meal.

She helped with science project’s (well, ok there was a couple that she probably did all by herself) and went to concerts (and didn’t even bring earplugs that I know of) and patched the boo-boos. She took us to church every week even though I’m now positively sure there were Sundays that were spent not listening to talks but quieting children in the hopes that one day we’d grow up and learn why she was taking us.

Now she’s Grandma Pam and living far away. I call and chat 3 times a week, mostly it’s me going yada, yada, yada and her listening. I tell about work or the kid’s or the lack of sleep, we talk for 30 minutes and she’s talks for maybe like 3 minutes of it. She sends me stuff when I ask for it and my girl’s way too many clothes. Yeah so that’s way my mom’s the best mom in the whole world.

P.S. Thank you to Karen who helped Seporah and Felicity make me a killer Mother’s Day card, It is adorable.

less pictures, less updates, less of everything, except for love. So FYI about Felicity, now that she is 6 months old! That’s half a year! She now has TWO teeth, the front 2 on the bottom and wow-sers I had no idea how lucky we had it with Seporah. I’ll tell you what when Felicity is teething, you’d think she was dying. She now crawls up a storm and can stand holding on to something, we took the bumpers off her crib. I don’t know her height and weight, but I can tell you she’s getting bigger and finally has a few chubs and she’s in size 3-6 month clothes. She’s still a hot tempered redhead, but has the best baby smile in the world. She’s been an exclusive boob lady for 6 months now. She also eats sweet potatoes, green beans, and peas and thanks to her sister french fries, pizza crust, and grill cheese sandwiches. She loves toys and trash, putting both to her mouth equally. She HATES the carseat, thinking it’s a daily source of torture. She idolizes her big sister who largely dismisses and ignores her despite their parents best effort. She will put both hands on your cheeks and lean in with an open mouth to give the best slobbery kisses in the world. Yep that’s pretty much our little baby girl. Felicity means happiness.

(yeah, not the best picture, but whatever)