He’s turning 3, but not really three but the poor kid didn’t get anything for Christmas from us (except Smarties) and it’s not that a 2.5 year old really needs a gift but I want to get him at least something for his birthday. Preferably something durable, educational, fun, lead-free, that encourages creativity… hahaha. Not picky at all.

SO, all four of you reading our blog, any brilliant ideas?? He’s our third kid to turn 3, why am I feeling so clueless? Maybe because everything he wants to play with is the older kids’ toys so they’re not at all age appropriate - he seems to scorn “toddler toys” but he’s not coordinated enough for older stuff.

Off to research…

Oh, and Mommy’s Resolutions for Bennett, 2008:

- Let’s work on the concept of an “inside voice” if we can? As thrilled as we are, thrilled beyond words, that you have such amazing lungs and such a strong voice, we would really, really appreciate if on occasion you used a volume below “dull roar.” Especially at church or when Emy is asleep.

- This year we’re gonna help you potty train. I won’t push it until summer, but keep that in mind. You’re gonna be a diaper graduate this year.

- You are going to bed at night SO WELL. I love the cuddles, I love how you set your glasses down and snuggle on your pillow. I love that you pass out by 7:30pm. But please, please, please - let’s work on sleeping in past 6am? Please, please?

- While we’re at it, Daddy would like to request no more midnight visits. Or 2am or 4am ones.

- You do a great job cleaning up after yourself (with reminders) including clearing your dishes. We love it and are very grateful. We would like to to be little less self reliant with getting your own food. We are happy to feed you, we are grateful you have a healthy appetite, but this pouring your own orange juice thing? And the pulling out cheese and trying to cut it for yourself? (Even though you did get a cutting board, clever boy!) It’s just not safe, we really need you to let us know you want some help and stop getting your own snacks. Oh, and the toaster oven and microwave are still off limits, okay?

Update: Chunky Monkey!! I just weighed you this morning and you are 28lbs!! When did that happen? You’re up from the 5th percentile on the actual charts (you graduated off the preemie charts where you would probably be enormous!) and you’re now at 15th percent on the actual charts! Go, Bennett!!

“We cannot understand the answers to questions we have not asked.”

“So many things about our lives we cannot choose, but we can decide where our minds travel.”

The other quotes are up in the school blog, they’re from a women’s conference talk by Maurine Jensen Proctor.

Someday I hope to own all the volumes of talks - they compile them into books and they are AMAZING. I have 2001, 2004 and 2006. And someday, when I’m not longer pregnant/nursing, I hope to attend women’s conference! All of those years at BYU I could have attend, I worked in the same building where they held most of the classes, but I was too busy and distracted and I missed that opportunity…

Score! I went to www.half.com and found a seller that had almost all of the old conference compilations. I didn’t buy the ones from 2002 on because they weren’t cheap yet but the 90s were all 75 cents!! And since I bought them all from the same seller I was able to get 7 of them, including shipping, for $25!! Woo-hoo, me! I tried to start with the years I was at BYU forward… Now when in the world will I find time to read all of them… good thing it’s broken down into talks I can read in snippets of time. So much for me being frugal, but I love these. They are a great investment for my emotional and spiritual well being.

Before I forget, you say Mama & Daddy very clearly, and Emy or baby. But you also just said “Meh-meh” (Moira) and “Wih-uh” (Christopher) and “Meh-neh” (Bennett) - you were repeating after me but looking and pointing at them. Very cute.

This year I’m setting myself up for success… so, in no particular order I present “My Goals for 2008″ -

- Gain 25 pounds.
- Stop vomiting.
- Take more pictures of my children.
- Edit at least one video of the kids.
- Exercise in 2009. (I’m having a baby in 2008 - I’m not gonna exercise.)
- Turn 31 gracefully.
- Eat at least four pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.
- Tell my children I love them every day while smothering them in hugs and kisses.
- Go do temple sealings with Kit.
- Read a book.

Okay, that’s good for now. I think I can probably meet those goals. We’re working with the kids on setting goals, I’ll probably post theirs on our school blog.

Heidi, standing at the stove stirring a pot, exclaimed, “Oh my gosh! He’s reading my butt!”

Heidi was standing in her hand-me-down yoga pants. The pink ones that spell “PRINCESS” across her seat. She did not buy these, I assure you.

Bennett was standing behind her, poking each letter, calling it by name. He got all the way to the E when Heidi realized what he was up to.

Heidi would like to defend herself by stating - these pants are very comfortable, they were hand-me-downs, I do NOT wear them out of the house and under NO CIRCUMSTANCES WILL OUR GIRLS EVER BE ALLOWED TO WEAR ANY CLOTHING WITH STATEMENTS ON THEIR REAR ENDS!! Which probably means now I have to get rid of my pink yoga pants…

OH, and normally we seek to avoid use of the word “butt” but Bennett surprised me and it came out. Mo says “bum” and Christopher says “bottom” but when I got poked in the rear, “butt” just came to mind…

We’ll start by reaffirming that I do believe it’s important to go to church, I realize it’s a temple recommend question, we want our children to gain testimonies of this, and we know partaking of the sacrament is a commandment. Okay, kids? Okay…

WHY DO WE TRY TO TAKE FOUR CHILDREN TO CHURCH AT NAPTIME??? Our ward meets from 1 to 4pm. Next week our schedule changes, it will be 9am and there will be heavenly choirs singing our gratitude. Church lately feels completely futile. Okay, not completely - usually we are all able to take the sacrament, though it’s mostly in the hall. Usually Christopher gets to attend Primary (well, until that recent incident but that’s getting addressed next week.) And Moira adores her teachers, but she’s really hit or miss with Primary. Kit teaches 1 or 2 times a month so he attends his meeting third hour while I pace the halls with Emy and Bennett. On weeks he’s not teaching he paces the halls while I attend my meetings.

(more…)

Tips from Zen living, shared by someone on my Charlotte Mason group.

I love praline pecans. LOVE THEM. The candied nuts, the ice cream, the sugar mounds with a couple pecans sprinkled in them. LOVE PRALINES. I fell in love with some in California that Trader Joe’s carries but WE HAVE NO TRADER JOE’S IN TEXAS! Which was a significant point of concern for me when leaving California…

Anyway, I’m missing those pecan pralines and Jenny doesn’t live there anymore so she can’t bring them to me and I was getting desperate. At which point I held a copy of Tiger hostage that James needs and has been trying to find for less than a million dollars - we have it and Kit, because he’s so nice, was willing to just send it to James but NOT ME. The pregnant lady demanded praline pecans from Trader Joe’s!! (I think at this point James was starting to get scared, or at least skeptical, that I was willing to send him an OS for candy. Clearly he does not spend a lot of time around pregnant ladies. We are not what you would call “rational” when it comes to cravings.)

Well, Kit, my amazing husband, took pity on his wife AND HE MADE ME PRALINES. And they are truly the best pralines I’ve ever had, and I’ve had pralines literally from west coast to east coast. And they were all yummy!! Thank you to everyone that sent me pralines! (This is an on-going craving… I guess I can’t blame this on pregnancy.) Here’s the recipe. Kinda sad to discover how easy they are after all these years of desperate measures… Praline Pecans.

Oh, we did 2 cups of pecans instead of 1.5 cups, we did butter instead of margarine. We stirred at 4 minutes, 7 minutes and pulled it out at 8 minutes because it seemed dark enough - keep a close watch. And I did the cold water bath - put bowl with mix into a bigger bowl of cold water to bring temp down and help it set while you stir. But then MOVE FAST because once it turns it can get grainy really fast. Still delicious, but not smooth. And if it doesn’t set - great ice cream topping! And if it gets grainy - crumble up for ice cream! So long as you don’t burn it, you can’t fail.

In a sad way, this whole pregnancy is my confirmation that this baby is our caboose. I wish I could capture the way I’m feeling so if I ever get baby hungry down the line Kit can remind me of how this feels. It’s worth it, of course! SO worth it, but I have no clue how I survived morning sickness so many times all while knowing I was going to have more children. Because right now the thought that keeps me going is - this is IT. Our little caboose and we are done! I will never again feel this wretched, unless I get a nasty case of food poisoning and a migraine at the same time. And the flu. I don’t know what cosmic alignment of forces chose to make pregnancy this miserable.

I have to consciously NOT think about the rest of the pregnancy, labor and such, because I cry if I think about it. I feel so terrible now that pondering labor (I was looking at some of the books) reminds me of how horrible THAT part is, too, and I cannot emotionally handle that. I need to focus on the thought of a temporary reprieve in the second trimester. Something to give me some sleep and some hope and some perspective before I face the third trimester madness…

Remind me it gets better. It gets better. I wouldn’t keep doing this if it didn’t get better. They’re so cute and worth the vomiting and migraines and heartburn and backache and pain and torture and anxiety and labor… notice I’m very carefully not allowed my brain to even consider postpartum? Let alone two year olds because those are all new levels of insane.

I can do this. I’ve done it before, I can do it again. Last time. I can do it. At some point I will be able to eat again, I will enjoy food again, I’ll have energy.

It’s the way the brain works, it’s so hard to project ahead or to remember that just a short couple months ago I felt GREAT. I was running, eating really well, getting so much done with the kids and the house and my own projects. I felt good! And I had four kids, and they are getting older and in many ways easier, so I can totally do five! I can do five! I was able to do more with four and feel so great, better than when I had one! Five will be wonderful. I can do five.

Sigh… I miss running. I miss my appetite. I miss food. I miss being able to sit up without getting dizzy. I miss being migraine free. The other day I bent over to throw away a glass jar and got so dizzy I slipped and dropped it, shattering the glass jar all over my bare legs. I can’t move quickly or I tip over. I know the migraines and blood flow are all related… numbness, seeing spots, feeling so off kilter. (What’s a kilter?)

I think the trick is to keep eating, even if it feels horrible, just keep eating. Pulp free orange juice seems to help first thing in the morning to get my blood sugar up… but when the vomiting hits it’s a vicious cycle to break so I have to get something to stay down and then I have to just keep eating… because an empty stomach and blood sugar dropping are not good. I’ve not gotten dehydrated, thankfully. And today isn’t as bad as yesterday, so I have hope.

I’m almost 8 weeks. By 14 weeks I usually feel human again. But that’s six weeks and I cannot survive that long… so we’ll just think about today. Breakfast stayed down. Next hope - lunch. Let’s see if I can do lunch.

The first trimester, oddly enough, is very expensive. If there is any food I can think of that doesn’t make me feel sick then Kit wants to race and grab it right away before the craving passes… we rarely ever eat out, even if we’re not buying the house this year we plan to next year so we’re trying to be super conservative with the budget. But that’s totally out the window when we just need to find some food I can keep down. And it’s so random! One minute pizza can sound repulsive and the next it sounds perfect. Pad thai - that was last week. Spring rolls. Sweet & sour chicken. Steamed broccoli. Nachos. Artichoke dip - Kit made it and I couldn’t touch it. It’s tricky to prepare for all of these while grocery shopping, thus a lot of take out…

I’m reading this whiny post and the thought that hits me is - I’m not scared of having a preemie! I’m so sick and miserable that I’m just assuming I’m going to be full term and experience all the third trimester miseries, too. Isn’t that wonderful?? As terrible as I feel, I’m feeling terrible because of normal pregnancy stuff. I’m not on bedrest, I’m not bleeding, I’m not “high risk” and I’m not living in constant fear of having a preemie. I’m just sick! Wow, that makes me feel so much better… See, perspective! I found some.

That’s what Jean called it when Kit called… Three hours of vomiting, I just couldn’t stop so Kit called Jean and told her w had leftover zofran and she told him to give it to me. It worked, I’m exhausted and my head is still throbbing but at least I can keep water down…

Mojo, I sure love you!!

Christopher was not impressed with his fortune (Focus on the color yellow tomorrow for good luck!) and said, “Weird. Do they make these things up?”

Kit and I enjoyed this place called Mr. Chopsticks when we were dating (yes, for all five days) and engaged, his apartment was across the street from it. We went back there when I was pregnant with Christopher (and it’s the first public place I vomited while pregnant, isn’t that a lovely memory? But I threw up before the meal, and in the bathroom…)

Anyway, I was craving their spring roll with sweet chili sauce and Kit & Christopher are addicted to their veggie pad thai so we went up there for dinner tonight and grabbed take out. Unfortunately by the time we GOT the take out I was sick and the thought of it turned my stomach. But maybe tomorrow I can eat it!

And lest I sound like a completely ungrateful whiner, I am so thankful to be feeling this miserable because it’s a sign this baby is happily baking away. Grow, Mojo, grow!

I’m laying on the couch feeing miserable, chills and headache, queasy, muscle ache… I tell Kit how rotten I feel and suggest, “Maybe I have the flu?”

His response? “Maybe. Maybe you’re PREGNANT!”

Stinker…