Day of (un?)rest

Normally, I would not say it's restful to wake up before 6 on a Sunday morning, get dressed, then have my 3-year-old come in the room with white lips and an upset stomach. It's not usually good when he then asks for a bowl of cereal even though I know he will be losing said cereal within minutes of eating it. It's especially not a good thing if it's a Sunday when I am supposed to both teach the lesson in Relief Society, and conduct my first choir rehearsal in two months right after church. To add to the confusion, I had a house full of visiting in-laws, who were trying to get ready for church and pack up their stuff to leave for home right afterward.

But I have a fabulous husband who cleaned up Riley's mess on the floor, the bucket, the bathtub, and changed the sheets TWICE, and comforted the poor sick kid. I have kind, self-sufficient relatives who took care of their own needs and didn't mind getting their own breakfasts. I have a great Relief Society whose members like to comment a lot during lessons. And I have an easygoing choir, half of whom actually showed up (mixed blessing there).

Best of all, all of this Sunday-morning craziness was a welcome change after a week spent going from one family gathering to the next. We had a barbecue with Kurt & Kara, Dan & Dee, Kathryn and Kent, and all the kids going crazy. We went swimming with the herd of kids. We had a family dinner to welcome Leo and Tricia home. We had a family breakfast just for fun. Bruce and I had six kids under 6 sleep over here (plus two over six and their parents). We took all the kids to the park. We played cards. I gave up sweeping the floor becuase of all the kids kids kids! And to top it all off, Zeke started crawling on Sunday morning!

So you can see how maybe teaching a lesson and conducting a choir pale in comparison to all that stress. We had tons of fun, but I'm happy to be back to work and the normal routine. The only problem is, work is starting to seem stressful again. Could you all please visit (at the same time) every week or two so I can keep my stress level in perspective?

Future spelling bee champ?

If you don't like hearing proud mamas brag about their brilliant kids, watch out!

Last week sometime, S and R were coloring and Riley showed me a piece of paper on which he'd neatly written "i-L-E-Y." I was excited, but I just helped him write his "R" and then forgot about it. Until Friday.

We were outside coloring with chalk and he excitedly showed me the "R" he had drawn all by himself. Then he wrote the rest of his name. Every letter got a little bigger than the last, but other than that they were beautifully formed--as nice as Sammy's letters, and he's been working on them for a year and a half! And mind you, he was writing with chalk on concrete; not the easiest thing. Even I'm a little messy in that medium.

So here comes the impressive part. He and I were sitting down and I was showing him a few tricks to make it easier to write some letters. Then he turns and writes, "Y-E-L-I-R." He didn't say, "There's my name backwards!" Just, "There's my name." Now, he didn't write it backwards, starting with the "R." He wrote it left to right starting with the "Y," without thinking about it, like spelling a word backwards is no harder than spelling it the regular way. He wrote his name and Tyler's name a few times more, once backwards.

The kid is a genius, I tell you! I have been thinking lately that it's time to start teaching him to trace letters and figure out what sounds they make. Too late for that! Not only can he write, he's got this logical little brain that lets him spell and write backward and forward interchangably.

I adore babies and toddlers and I miss that part of childhood when it's gone. So it's a fabulous thing that we get the excitement of learning and growing up all over again with these little kids. Baby Riley is gone, but now I get to see his unique personality and gifts and talents develop in amazing ways. On to the next discovery!

Creepy crawlies

I'm a daydreamer. One of my biggest daydreams of the past several years has been to move toward a more rural lifestyle. You know, chickens and maybe a goat in the backyard, a really big garden (like, enough to sell the extra at a roadside stand, or at least give it away), big canning parties at harvest time. Life away from the suburbs (but not TOO far from Costco).

But let's face it. I'm a wimp.

There is a really HUGE spider, or maybe more than one, that lives in the window well right next to my computer. It was stuck between screen and window for a few days, and I sat staring at it for minutes at a time. Revulsion? Horror? Yes. But could I open the window to kill it? No. Bruce's job. I shriek and run when a yellowjacket surprises me in the garden. In fact, I only weed before 9 a.m., partly because of the heat and partly because of the bees.

In reality, my imagination is just too good. Or my paranoia. Last week I went to pick apricots at a u-pick place nearby. Not too far from the parking lot where Dan saw a rattler last month (just after our kids had been tramping through the weeds, mind you). So snakes had been on my mind all day as I psyched myself up to go. Alone. Luckily there was a tough-looking guy in military gear picking apricots at the same time. I traipsed across the open field to where the best fruit was. Two minutes later, he was done and turned back. I was alone, picking fruit, on a hot and sunny afternoon. I heard a noise from about 50 feet east. Stop. Again. Stop. I'm not sure if it was a rattlesnake, but it was a distinct possibility. Then the same noise from 50 feet west. Stop. Again. I climbed up the ladder and tried to pick more fruit--the apricots were GREAT on this tree. A few more rattling noises, from both sides.

I left the tree. I traipsed back across the field (luckily, away from the unidentified noises). The owner of the trees said, "Is that all you got?" I made some excuse (remember, I had left the trees with the best fruit) and headed north, past the little house and garden, to some other trees with smaller fruit, not as ripe. I heard no rattling noises. I paid and went home, happy to be alive.

So how would I do on a farm? Maybe okay, if I had a gun on me at all times (and could keep my wits about me enough to aim at the snake). Maybe not. But even here in the suburbs, nature sometimes gets a little too creepy for me. For now, I'll keep getting my eggs and goat cheese from the store, and buy my fruit for canning from someone else's roadside stand.