We have had halcyon weather this week (I just learned this word and wanted to try it out; it sort of rhymes with calcium). I want to be happy about it, because it is beautiful. We can see the mountains much more often.
It's warmed up enough for the rhododendrons to come out in full force all over the city. They always remind me of Daphne Du Maurier's "Rebecca," so I love/hate them.
When we go walk the boardwalk trail through the wetlands the birds are all out and active. There were a bunch of these beauties last time we went.
And one of these singing away that distracted me so much that I lost sight of Vivien and Rafe on their bikes and spent the next half hour breathing deeply to keep panic at bay while I tried to figure out which trail they had taken. They were just picking flowers waiting for me at the trail head when I found them.
We can throw a blanket on the lawn and while away the afternoon watching the wind blow in the leaves.
We can go to outdoor birthday parties for our friends where we play in sprinklers on the lawn.
We can go explore the valley on the other side of the fence of our neighborhood park.
(We went from our neighborhood to deepest forest in less than 3 minutes of walking. The ghost of my preteen self was in heaven; she could spend many happy hours out there every day exploring. But the mother inside of me needed the adventure to end quickly so the baby didn't get eaten alive by mosquitoes and so I could get lunch going. I can hear my preteen self scoffing at how boring moms are, while my mom-self sighs and does the dishes no one else will do.)
The kids can spend whole afternoons out in the back yard, swinging on my Mother's Day swing, riding bikes across the porch, constructing complex irrigation systems with gardening shovels to supply the weeds living under the porch with water, generally having a magnificent time in the open air. Annie eats a lot of dirt.
Which means I get to sit and read Poldark voraciously. I started Demelza at the end of last month, then read Jeremy, then these . . .
. . . and also these . . .
. . . plus two others on my Kindle app. It's a good thing I don't do drugs. I am happy to be in the last book. I need my life back! Though it's fun to see Vivien dress up and think, "Gee, that looks like a tricorn hat."
And there is so much fascinating history that I now have a place for in my brain. I was so excited to read this paragraph, because I totally purchased the yarn for Colette's Christmas sweater two years ago from New Lanark Mills! I knew they used the traditional techniques, but now I know what the "19th century England" they're talking about looked like. And I am filled with an overwhelming desire to sing the Reading Rainbow song . . .
Anyway. The beautiful sun and warmer weather lets us do many fun things. But. BUT.
No AC. Sabrina likes her house to be 68 degrees. It is usually about 76 degrees now. It would be manageable, but my household duties regularly require me to sit in front of open flames, handle scalding water, and snuggle a tiny human heater several hours a day. It makes me cranky. So it's especially good that my children look like this:
They are truly enjoyable little people.
Another one of those, just for fun.
And one of them all. Pay no attention to the laundry still waiting to be folded. My hands have been busy turning pages . . .
After Vivien's nightmare of Annie's death I mentioned last blog post, both Rafe and I also had dreams about her dying (in mine I'd somehow let her freeze to death in the night and I was burying her in that fluffy pink coat she's wearing above when I was awakened by Rafe crying out, "Nooooo! I love Annie." I had to get him good and awake before he would stop crying.). Sort of related picture . . . Rafe. Mom. Sleeping. Check.
Afterwards I laid there in my bed in a thrill of anxiety trying to figure out what it meant, if anything, and shake away the miasma enough to sleep (another new word to try out!). In the morning I ran it by lots of people, to get it out in the open and talk it through. The general consensus was that it was probably a reminder to have CONSTANT VIGILANCE! I have a tendency to be pretty laid back in my parenting because I want my children to experiment and learn, but I do actually need to be there to make sure they can do it safely. So, you know, they don't get lost in an enormous wetland because I'm off listening enraptured to a western meadowlark. Or lock themselves in a closet upstairs while I am buried in a Poldark novel. They need my attention.
And so I am happy to give it to them!
Maybe soon we'll get Merrick switched over to a safer bed. Poor 4th child. His nursery would not be featured in any baby magazines, that's for sure. Merrick's sleep jam is "Celestial White Noise." It's like an on/off switch for him now.
Here at the bottom I will just give you a sample of the intellectual gauntlet my children run me through every day.
Vivien (in the car on the way to swim): How does someone make tools if they don't have any tools?
Rafe (at lunch): Mom? What's inside carrots?
Vivien (2 hours after having been put to bed): Mom? How did they choose the new Chancellor when Dr. Rivera died?
This one took me a second. We checked out "Tomas and the Library Lady" from the library which is about the early life of Tomas Rivera, a Mexican-American author/educator who was the Chancellor of the University of California, Riverside at one point. There's a little bio at the back that I had read to her maybe twice several weeks before. These are the things Vivien thinks about at night when she's going to bed.
And also a little snippet of the joy of joys that is bath time with Mr. Merry.
Coach Drew volunteered to do Rafe's team this year. It is a funny little team of 3-4 year olds. They're usually lucky if they can get 6 players on the field at one time. Not because they don't come, but because they're hanging out with their parents on the sidelines, trying to handle all the emotions in their little bodies. It's getting better though. They're starting to get more comfortable with how the game works. This last week Drew held the littlest one's hand and led him around to where he needed to be to be able to get a foot on the ball before the mass of kicking legs converged on him. It was really sweet.
He usually has to juggle Annie during the games. I can only hold one baby at once in the fold-up chairs.
Sometimes some of the other parents will help us out and try to distract her for a minute. There's some cousins on our team that are in our stake, so it's a fun little Mormon party every week. Here's their grandma holding Annie. It makes me want to move to Utah. Very much.
I think overall Rafe is enjoying soccer.
He does a pretty good job following the ball and he even scored once! He's tied my lifetime record already! That's an exaggeration, but a very slight one. Don't mess with Rafie when he's on a break-a-way . . .
The referees are really nice and have to do a lot of teaching/helping during the games. Here's one tying Rafe's cleat.
I just think he's a pretty cute boy. I was looking at his face when I took this and forgot to check where hands were. I am posting it anyway.
Vivien is also having fun. She's actually a pretty social creature. She got mobbed by these two cute sisters on her team when she arrived for her first game.
She was secretly pleased, though outwardly rebuffed them.
Her first game she played one half, then sat on her Daddy's lap for the rest of the game with a stomach ache that disappeared as soon as the game was over (MAGIC, Magic, magic . . .)
But now she plays the full time. She follows the ball well, but tries to keep at least a 2 foot radius between it and herself at all times. She orbits. Unless there are no other players around, in which case she goes for it.
Annie considers soccer the way she considers most things in the world: with furrowed brows.
And the reason our field is so beautiful and green and surrounded by astonishing trees is because it rains every game. We keep off the gloom with umbrellas and constant cheering. I have instituted the Cheer Tunnel after every game for both kids' teams. It is my favorite thing. Especially when the opposing team comes and runs through it too!
And now for some nature. I planted a lot of different types of tulips in the front yard last fall, which has been so fun because they've bloomed in waves, changing the look of the bed week to week.
This has been my favorite group so far. So pretty!
And look at the funny thing the stems did when I cut some of them to bring them inside:
I noticed when it started to bloom that there is a royal purple azalea buried under one of our massive flowering shrubs. I went to cut it back a little, but underneath the top few inches of green and flowers was this gnarly mass of dead twigs.
I started trying to only cut a few of them, but "Aooooh, look what happened!" Oops. Maybe it will grow back. "I am the gardener here! And I know what I want you to be." Sort of.
I got this nifty blister for my pains (and for some efforts unsnarling the sheepskin) which split open every time my hand was shaken for Mother's Day today. "Happy Mother's Day to you!" "Thanks!" Ouch.
Quick aside, for Mother's Day this year the men took over third hour and let all the women meet in the gym. The bishop talked for about 5 minutes, then they fed us fruit and veggies and cheese and crackers and brownies and let us visit with each other sans children for an hour. It was amazing! Almost as amazing as the porch swing my family gave me for being their mom. I'm sure there will be many pictures of it to come. Here's my wonderful ward. I took this secretly right after the prayer, so that's why no one's smiling. I love Sarah's face, the woman 2nd from the right. It's like in those old paintings where the artist would paint himself sneakily in the corner, looking out at you.
My friend encouraged me to try out a local network of trails, so we went for a brisk walk/ride. It goes along a river bed, and as much as I love all the pines, it was refreshing to walk through some different kinds of trees. I started having flashbacks to one of my first adventures on a bike when we turned onto the boardwalk . . . Luckily no one went off the side and landed squelchily in the mud this time.
And look! We saw a giraffe. It's a life size wooden cutout that they move around the park. The kids were shouting, "WOW!! We've never seen a giraffe in the wild before!!" Apparently there is an elephant around too, but we didn't see it this time.
We also walked down to the Children's Garden last week and spent some time walking along the beach picking up toxic calm shells.
It was brisk and windy, but refreshing.
We had a thunderstorm too! We hardly ever get thunder with our rain here, so we sat out on the porch and watched the cool cloud formations roll by, counting after lightning flashes and screaming when the thunder rumbled (kids screaming, not me). We had just checked out "Thunder Cake" by Patricia Polacco from the library, so the kids were especially thrilled. I think it looks like we're under water.
Last nature thing. Our feeder has been well received by the neighborhood birds and I've enjoyed trying to identify them. We get dark eyed junco (top left and right in flight), I've seen a couple white crown sparrows, and though the tree swallows (bottom right) don't eat from the feeder, we get to watch them whirling and swooping through the air hunting bugs all day. I love swallows.
Now for some baby pictures!
A comparison at 2 months.
And now, just for fun.
This boy is definitely our biggest baby. I had to break out the 6 month clothes, and he's only 2 months old. I am interested to see how he measures on the growth chart when we can finally get in to the doctor. (I called in the middle of April to set up an appointment for his 2 month check up and they told me their next available was in JUNE. Hurray for free military healthcare . . .)
Here he is on my visiting teachee's daughter Zephyr's lap.
So meaty!
And good-natured. So long as my world revolves around him, of course. "Sleep me when I'm tired, feed me when I'm hungry, and hold me when I'm about to be either of those things, and I will be happy."
Good thing I still have this nice baby belly for him to sit on.
He's also rather fond of leaning against knees.
Less fond of sisters.
"I can see his eyes . . .
I have to do something to his eyes!"
Look how Annie eats her food.
I put pigtails in her hair the other day. She is a little girl. A little girl who wears bright blue boots. Every day!
And leaves half-masticated mounds of food in her wake. I walked past this specimen the other day and thought for a heart-stopping second those were real bugs crawling around in it. It was the shock I needed to get back into my pre-giving-birth cleaning regimen.
Do you see that squishy little arm in my hand? It got caught. Caught in what, you ask? Rafie's teeth! You can see the circle bruise right above her elbow. So. Naughty.
And very much a 4-year-old. I've had his birthday card sitting on the fridge for almost 2 months now because it's my favorite birthday card I've ever seen, but it was time for the fridge to be a little less cluttered.
Here's Rafe slaving away at the flour mill so I can make bread. Sometimes he wears one of Daddy's polo shirts to bed. For fun?
And here's a body tracing Rafe brought home from Primary a few weeks ago. His teacher was cracking up about the face he drew on it.
Drew and Rafe got to go on the Fathers and Sons campout.
Prepped for rain, of course.
There were some old war buildings. And lots of Canadian geese.
Vivien got to go on her own little adventure with Daddy the week before to her first Mariners game.
They took the ferry over.
And saw Drew's boss taking a bicycle cab to the game.
It was a good time.
And a late night for the little girl.
As for me, I have been trying to feed the kids better. I've been following Super Healthy Kids meal plans, because then I don't have to think about what's for breakfast/lunch/snack/dinner, and I can print out a picture menu at the beginning of the week so everyone knows what we will eat and when, and there is less arguing about how we can't eat Life cereal all the times. Instead we eat HUGE spinach wraps.
And in the time I've saved not arguing about meals, I've read 7 Poldark novels. I think Poldark and I were meant to be . . .
I read while I'm feeding Merrick and putting him down for a nap. It's my "alone time" since the bathroom is no longer a sacred space for me.
Some funnies:
Vivien told me the other day she wants to be a doctor. She then tried to convince Rafe that he wants to be a dancer, because he could wear cool costumes all the time.
I have a playlist of songs for them to listen to in the car. Wake Me Up Before You Go Go is one, but they call it "Banana Jelly Bug" because of the beginning.
Rafe moved in to give Merrick a snuggle the other day and said, "Me and Merrick are wrestling with our noses. Actually battling."
Vivien told me at the Mariners game she saw a boy "riding a bool." I think she meant a bull.
Vivien talking about something inappropriate for the Sabbath, "Because if we do it on Sunday it's not keeping it holy, it's keeping it CRAZY!"
Drew told me a story about work awhile ago, but I couldn't even follow it. Everyone has names like Star Wars robots, and all the things that happen have acronyms and code names. IT1, V-12, GM1, AVH2, DRB, XOI, Captain's Mast. So confusing.
Vivien told me her dream from the night before: "A man with a gun shot Annie and then you made a sad face. There was a handkerchief tied to her leg and I took it and she died in my arms. Then I woke up because I didn't want to finish it." Whaaaaaaaat?
