So many tears . . .

My children are all really small.  And they are all home with me.  All the time.  Unless we go somewhere, in which case they are all with me at that place.  I freely admit that I am getting my trash kicked over here by these adorable little monsters, and it is really hard.

"Hi, I'm Merrick and I am usually sleeping or squawking.  I swallow a lot of air when I eat and I am tricky to burp, so I spend most of my waking moments writhing in discomfort trying to move air through my tiny intestines.  I am not easily soothed and I flatly refuse to suck on a pacifier."

"I'm Annie and I can purple-face cry at the drop of a hat, or any other seemingly benign occurrence that inexplicably causes me displeasure.  I'm prone to nap skipping.  I only eat dairy, condiments, and sugar, and I get myself down from the table as soon as Mom turns her back so I can start sliming everything in sight.  My newest trick is head butting when I don't get what I want, with an optional upgrade to enraged biting."

"Hi, I'm Rafe.  I like to pretend to kill my mom all day with anything that could remotely resemble a sword or gun.  I also delight in provoking my older sister until she hits me, at which point I let loose my own special scream-cry that is on the soundtrack they play in Hell."

"And I'm Vivien.  I can come up with (and exhaustively defend) at least 20 reasons why I should get to keep doing whatever I want to do instead of what I'm asked to do.  Seriously, try telling me not to do something and see how fast I can do it right in your face.  I do a great scowl-smirk to really give the defiance a nice flair."

 I think there was a part of me that believed I was actually going to be able to be a parent that likes my children all the time, despite evidence to the contrary from almost every family I have ever observed.  I have been disabused of the notion this month.  There are way too many responsibilities associated with this job that make me unpopular, and guess what? I don't like people who are mean to me for trying to do my job well.  I think they're jerks.

He's disgusted that I would give him three pancakes at once, instead of giving him two pancakes to start with and reserving one for when he wanted seconds (I was just supposed to know this).  The feeling's mutual, buddy.

So, all I can say is, thank heaven for General Conference and for wonderful family and friends that have helped me figure out ways to still love my children and be kind to them, even when I don't like them.  Mark and Paula came out and saved my bacon for their spring break.  Papa Mark is a playmate excelente.

This job is totally doable when there's an adult for every child!

Grandma Paula let me chat her ear off and cooked all the meals and held sad babies, even though she had a cough.  She even went all Japanese on us and wore a mask around so the baby wouldn't get sick.

  O that all women were so fortunate to have such a mother-in-law!

They were able to stay for Mr. Merrick's blessing before heading back to UT.  Drew gave a beautiful blessing that helped me have a little more patience with this fussbudget of a baby.  He's going to be a great person.

I got brave and gave Vivien a much needed (and begged for) haircut.  We went to Sally Beauty Supply to get a hair cut kit (worst store ever to take four tiny tactile people to), then I put the younger two down for naps, watched a youtube video three times all the way through, took screen shots to make myself a little guide, put on Mulan 2 for distraction purposes, and chopped away!

Now when she gives me her stink face, she looks like the little girl she is, so it's harder to take it personally.

I'm glad this craziness is happening in the spring.  There's a bit more sunshine to keep spirits up. Rafe and Vivien love to run down the hill and pick flowers after swim lessons at the YMCA

 

It's warm enough that we can take our time getting to the car and practice balancing on every curb.

We can also risk taking long excursions, like to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium. We happened to go the first sunny day during Spring Break, along with the rest of the children on the entire Kitsap Peninsula.  Almost lost Annie so many times . . .

And there's the thrill of seeing everything that was dead all winter come to life.  

Bulbs are super cool.

We've had to give the yard a bit more attention, now that it's warm enough to go outside in it.  Drew got a lawn mower off craigslist.

Now the kids can practice soccer without losing their balls in the long grass.

Hopefully if we practice enough at home, Vivien will feel comfortable enough to actually participate in soccer practice.  These were taken a couple minutes apart during Vivien's first scrimmage.  She's in the hot pink socks, red sweatshirt hood, and blue jersey.  I asked her how it went and she said, "I didn't score any goals."  No kidding!  I guess I should be pleased she at least turns her body towards the ball.  Baby steps, baby steps.

Other outside additions include some bird feeders.  We have a little dark eyed junco family that built a nest under our porch.  One of them is sitting on the corner fence post between the two kids, chirping reproachfully.  

They probably built the nest in the winter when we weren't out there all the time, so now I feel badly, like we lured them here under false pretenses.  So, the least we could do was feed them.  Kids playing right above the birds' nest under our air-drying silk duvet from China that I had to wash because Vivien came in for morning snuggles and peed in my bed.  

I like how everything you see through the hummingbird feeder is upside down.  

Though the hummingbirds seem to prefer this gorgeous Dollar Princess fuchsia Drew got for me.  It made me cry a little (I'm hormonal.  And tired.  And I was touched!)  I want a skirt that looks like those purple petals.  

Speaking of weird tears, I now have another song to join Be Our Guest and Stars and Stripes Forever.  It's the transition into the credit music on Phantom Menace.  Vivien's dance to the trumpet line right before the main theme starts is my favorite.

Star Wars Mania around here, folks.  A LEGO Star Wars book somehow wound up in my pile from the library.  I hate this book.  So much.  I find children's book adaptations of films pretty tedious in general, but this one takes the cake.  Guess which book we found Vivien and a flashlight curled up with 2 hours after we put her to bed though?

Back to spring happiness.  We didn't do so well with Holy Week this year.  I think I took a nap instead of doing the Palm Sunday diorama.  But, we did have a Passover feast.  I went through the whole Haggadah text and pulled out as much of it as I thought my kids could handle, and I found a YouTube video of the blessing over the wine that we sang over our grape juice.  Unfortunately, we got started kind of late because Drew had training in Seattle, and Merrick was CRANKAY, so the only picture I have is of . . . the dishes!

On Saturday we went to the ward Easter party.  It was a breakfast potluck and there were waaaaay too many doughnut holes to make healthy choices.  They had an Easter egg hunt for the kids afterwards (They had all children present sign up, then divided the number of eggs they had by children participating so that everyone knew exactly how many eggs to put in their baskets.  Genius!).  I took no pictures of them searching.  This is becoming a theme.  It's because my hands are always full of Merrick.  He is a two-hand baby. 

Balancing

And in honor of Easter, I got my Minerva Teichert "Christ in a Red Robe" reframed.  The guy at Michael's was intrigued by the technique of the Japanese framer who did it originally, but agreed that visible waves in a canvas are less than desirable.

I have a few odds and ends to tuck in at the bottom here.

Grandma Paula: Should we play Chutes and Ladders?
Vivien: No.  I really wanted to win games the first time and I never do when I play that game.  And if I don't win I cry.

Rafe: My name's Ranger Rick and I'm being a monkey.
Vivien: My name's Minnie Dumpling.  I'm named after my grandma.  She's a rice cake.

Vivien's been chanting, "Merrrr-ick!  Ruler of the sea!  Bow down to Merrick!" She can be a big help for such a small person.  The other day I was trying to get lunch on the table after swimming lessons.  I wasn't feeling very well and felt like I was moving through molasses trying to prepare some food, Annie was wailing disconsolately, and Merrick was screaming.  Vivien laid out a blanket, swaddled Merrick up, then held him on her lap and bounced him softly till he stopped crying.

She also takes secret pictures of me sometimes.

Which I appreciate, because now there is candid, photographic evidence of me, just in case I die tragically.

Here's some morning snuggles.  Someday, I would like a king size bed.

Because we have a couple kids who are more morning-tacklers than morning-snugglers, and I think it might be easier to protect all the vulnerable parts if there was more space.

Tonight I put Annie to bed and 10 minutes later she was screaming in distress.  I walked in there and she had taken her jammies off and somehow wedged her entire leg up to the hip in between her crib slats.  "I STUCK!  I STUCK!!"

Ah!  My wash is done, so now I can switch it and go to bed.  It is a load of diapers that I will definitely need in the morning.  I decided to give cloth diapering a go with Merry because I was having such a hard time keeping his diaper rash under control and I have read that it helps.  Also, I feel like a better steward when my trash can isn't overflowing by the time trash day comes (this has not been reason enough to tempt me to switch with any other children, but it's an added bonus).

I bought 24 cotton prefolds for $50 and six one-size covers/shells that were between $15-20 (I bought 2 Velcro closure GroVias which are definitely easy to use and very adjustable but the Velcro's already not quite as sticky as it was when I bought them, 1 snap GroVia, 2 snap Flips that are my favorite, and 1 snap BumGenius that I hate).  I just put the prefold on him and then hold it in place with the cover--no pins or anything.  I bought a Snappi but haven't needed to use it to keep the prefold in place.  The GroVia covers have a mesh layer on top of the waterproof layer that does get wet when he pees, but unless he gets poop on them I just keep using the same one with a new prefold until they start to smell, or until bath time.  For wipes I cut up some old receiving blankets into squares and zig-zag stitched around the edges.  I get one wet with a spray bottle when I change him.  I also cut a few strips of fleece using an envelope as a guide to put between his skin and the prefold if I'm going to be using a diaper rash cream that would gum up the cotton and keep it from absorbing.  When I change him I throw all the dirty diapers into that can lined with a washable bag that I bought off a girl on craigslist, and I wash them every 2 days.  My washer is cool, so all I have to do is throw the stuff in, turn it to the heavy duty setting, push prewash and extra rinse, then walk away until it's time to switch the prefolds to the drier and hang up the covers on the pull up bar that is making an excellent laundry line.

I got some baby leggings for him too, because cloth diapers are bulky and his big bum won't fit in his little pants.  Also, it's easier to check if he's wet/dirty.  It's hard to tell on cloth because they don't get squishy like disposables do.  

His diaper rash has been better since we switched, which could be because he's gotten older and his skin finally toughened up, but I think it's because once he's wet, he's really wet, and he hates it so much that I get no peace until I change him.  This is a good thing, because it makes it so I can't ignore him, which I am in danger of doing with everything else going on.