April flowers

I have always heard that the more kids you have, the less documented subsequent children's childhoods are. In my experience, however, that rule stands on its head. Amber's childhood is the most documented of all three children, even though she's the last! It's amazing how much more prevalent photo-taking became the minute I got a smartphone. I got my first smartphone the night before Amber was born, so I guess that explains it.

After some heavy-duty grocery shopping at WinCo on Friday (April 27th), Amber and I drove over to the temple to see the flowers. It was rather a hot afternoon, in the low 80's and brightly sunny. We admired all of the beautiful blooms and I managed to keep Amber from picking/stomping/hugging the flowers (although she did pat them with a firm hand). Then we did our traditional temple walk around the sidewalk looping the temple. When I say "temple walk" what I mean is Amber sprinted around the outside of the temple, squealing gleefully while I power-walked in her wake and tried not to call after her too loudly. She paused every few minutes and peeked over her shoulder saucily, waiting until I was almost caught up with her before dashing off again with more giggles and squeals.

Amber's destination was the fountain on the far side of the temple. After she had admired it sufficiently and touched the water plenty of times, I dragged her away whereupon she emitted a series of high-pitched shrieks. Then she slipped away from me and played balance beam along the front border of the flower beds. I was torn between amusement and concern that my wild child was a bit too much for the reverent temple grounds. Even if Amber's reverence is rambunctious, I am glad that she loves to go to the temple.

 Running ahead.

Still running. 

Reaching into the water 

 This girl wanted IN that fountain. I caught her with both shoes and one sock removed, preparing for a swim. She was not happy when I made her put her shoes back on.

 She alllllmost picked me a bouquet, but I caught her in the nick of time.

 Temple flower selfie fail. It was so bright I couldn't see my phone screen, so I didn't know I had already gotten a good picture earlier. I tried this one right before heading to the car and it makes me laugh! Amber was reaching towards those pretty flowers and I was trying to restrain all of her limbs one-handed while aiming the camera with my other hand.

 I love seeing my kids run towards the temple. (even if she escaped from me while we were going to the car)

 Walking the straight and narrow.

Planting

We planted our tiny garden two weeks ago while she was languishing on the couch the day after her tonsillectomy. We are very much amateur gardeners. Five years ago I tried my first garden, planted way too much, lost heart in the heat of the summer, and only harvested mutant cross-pollinated green pumpkins/orange zucchini hybrids. After that, various pregnancies and a sleepless baby Amber removed all gardening motivation until we moved to Sunnyside last year. Our house has a pleasant bit of earth right outside the kitchen window.

Last year we planted 3 tomato seedlings, three sugar snap pea seedlings, and 1 zucchini seedling. Since we planted everything quite late (in June, right after we moved into our house), we only had marginal success with the tomatoes. The sugar snap peas died within two weeks and later I learned that they need to be planted before it gets hot. We got plenty of zucchinis before the plant succumbed to a mysterious ailment and withered away before its time.

This year I decided to expand just a little. Throwing caution to the wind, I purchased six sugar snap pea plants, three tomato plants, and two strawberry plants. Grama Leslie gave us two broccoli seedlings and Jay brought home a cabbage seedling from school (random). We have seeds to plant watermelon when it warms up a bit. Compared to last year, this garden is huge!

Before we could plant those lovely greenies, however, we had to hack through the thick weeds that had gathered forces and overthrown our bit of earth. It was Saturday, April 14th. Amber was watching movies inside with her recently lasered throat. Jeff was at a track meet. I was taking the day off from running, so I had energy to spare on such taxing activities as gardening. It is oddly satisfying to clear weed off a patch of ground. It is also a ton of work, but we managed to remove the noxious weeds and within about 90 minutes we had a smoothly raked square garden area. We carefully laid out our seedlings in their wimpy planter pots, then we took turns digging holes and planting the seedlings. Working with my hands in the earth is a very connected sort of feeling. There is something very basic and meaningful about tilling and caring for our allotted garden.

Before, full of weeds. Pictures never do the before justice. I almost forgot to take a before picture because it doesn't seem like that big of a deal. Suffice it to say this took 90 minutes of work to clear. 

Hard at work. 

They started getting bored and took turns climbing into the trash can to "stomp down" the weeds we tossed in. 

 Digging

 Six holes for the six snap peas.

Adult gardening gloves are not all that effective on child-sized hands, but Rose made do. 

Rosie took a couple of pictures, forgetting the detail of waiting till the subject looks at the camera before clicking the button. 

We also planted a Jay-hand. 

 Strawberries

 Who knows if it will grow, but the garden is planted! So far two weeks later, all of the plants look the same to me. At least they aren't dead.

Jay made himself a river and pond. 

Very zen. 

Before/after.

SUPER HUNGY

This morning at 7am in the car while I was dropping Jeff off at work, I blithely made the most karma-jinxing-voodoo-faux-pas of a comment: "Amber has been so cute this week--she has been such a sweet little companion." Realizing my error and sensing the cosmic waves my words were rippling, I attempted to temper the statement with "maybe she seems extra sweet and fun this week because last week during her tonsillectomy recovery she was so exhausting." Jeff chuckled and then went in to work. I drove home, contentedly listening to Amber's cute high little semi-intelligible voice giving me a running commentary on some internal dialogue and trying not to think about the fact that Jeff would not be home until 10pm (courtesy of a far-off track meet in our massive state).

Amber really has been a fun little treasure of a daughter this week. We have had our run-ins, like when I attempted to get her to pee in the potty one day (we are so doomed in regards to Amber and the potty) and Amber sat there for ten solid minutes utterly refusing to pee. I was SO ANNOYED because she knows how to pee in the potty, but she refuses because she just doesn't want to. The condition for her to watch a show was to pee in the potty first. I thought that would motivate her perfectly, but alas, it did not. After an intensely frustrating battle of wills, I let Amber off the toilet but did not let her watch her show. She cried about it and I lost the half hour of quiet I would have gotten from her show-time. Sigh. Parenting. 

ANYWAYS, with the regular exceptions, I have really been enjoying Amber this week. She is so quirky and funny with such a big personality under her curly hair. I found myself nostalgically thinking thoughts such as "what am I going to take pictures of when Amber is in school?" and "I've been looking forward to large blocks of quiet time to write when Amber is in school, but will I even have anything to write about when Amber isn't pushing all of my buttons 24/7?" My heart felt heavy and sad at the thought. Babies growing up is a big, hard thing for us moms. 

After driving Jay and Rose to school this morning, I settled down at the kitchen table with a stack of papers to work on: 

• a school transfer application (Jay and Rose tested into the highly capable program which is offered at a different elementary school, so next school year they will switch schools)
• paperwork for our new optometrist (I could've just stayed with our previous optometrist, but for unpleasant appointments like eye-poking and teeth-gouging I prefer to be as close to home as possible, so we are switching.)
• a cookbook and paper to make a Costco/WinCo pantry restock list (this is the most expensive, least exciting type of grocery shopping, but I really only have to do it once a month or every other month if I'm feeling extra unmotivated, and it is so worthwhile to have a well-stocked pantry.)
• my monthly budget spreadsheet (to make sure I could work in the funds necessary for my aforementioned major pantry re-stock shopping trip)

It was a riveting morning. While I was number crunching and pantry-inventorying (ugh), Amber was bored. She was not in the mood to sit and watch me work. She was not in the mood to go off and play happily by herself. The sprinklers were jetting our yard in gallons of irrigation water, so outside was not an option. Predictably, Amber passed the time pestering me and making my work go turtle-slow. Here's a sample of the events from five minutes while I was trying to work:

• I write a word on my list.
• Amber attempts to click my pen top, messing up my writing.
• I push Amber's hands away and try dreaming up potential dinners for next week.
• Amber grabs my elbow and says loudly "I want to painting!" (she calls watercolors "painting") 
• I leave my papers to quickly fill a cup with water and grab the watercolors and paper, hoping this craft would buy me enough time to finish my work.
• After painting for two minutes, Amber climbs halfway onto the table in front of my face, shouting "I SUPER HUNGY! I SUPER HUNGY!" (I'm super hungry")
• I drag Amber away from my work area, rearranging the papers she disturbed.
• Amber yanks open the fridge and starts climbing the shelves to reach the yogurt which I keep on the top shelf so it's out of her reach. "I get the yogurt!"
• I leap up and pluck Amber out of the fridge (with a similar upwards-and-outwards unhooking motion that one might use to remove a cat from the curtains), telling her "NO CLIMBING the fridge--it's dangerous! And it's not time for yogurt--you just had breakfast an hour ago."
• Amber howls "Yogurrrrrrt! Wahhhh! Yogurrrrrt!" and runs off crying, curling up under her blanket across the kitchen. 
• I look back down at my list, grasping at my dangling train of thought.
• Recovering surprisingly quickly from her yogurt drama, Amber climbs up behind me on my chair, removes my ponytail, and commences tying my hair in knots, pushing it all into my eyes, and generally turning it into a teased, tangled disaster.
• After enduring Amber's hair-doing for nearly 2 entire everlasting minutes and telling her to be gentle 100 times, I ROAR in agony/frustration and stand up, moving my head and hair out of Amber's clawing grasp. Fixing my ponytail, I lecture her impatiently on the importance of being gentle with hair.
• Unconcerned, Amber runs off to play in the other room for one minute and ten seconds.
• I pause to ponder which snack foods are the healthiest/cheapest/most filling, and start adding to my list.
• Amber suddenly appears at my elbow, yanking on my elbow and messing up my writing. "I SUPER HUNGY!"
• I shake her off, grumble at her, and attempt to continue adding to my list.
• Amber walks back to the fridge, tugs it open, and then climbs inside, allowing the door to mostly close on top of her. A small voice floats out of the fridge: "Mommy, can you help me open the door?"

It was a long morning. I could have gotten all of my boring paperwork done in an hour or less, but thanks to Amber, it took me nearly triple that! To vent a little of my frustration at my prolonged pantry planning purgatory, I shot a few cranky texts at Jeff:

• IF I HEAR "I SUPER HUNGY" ONE MORE TIME I'M GOING TO LOSE IT!
• Amber has been badgering for food me ever since breakfast.
• I'm sitting here trying to make a grocery list and she's pulling on my arm, my hair, pinching me, crying, etc. 
• All I do is clean and figure out food.

At this point, Jeff got a word in edgewise: "You forgot looking fabulous. That is another thing you do, and you do it well." I recognized that he was trying to cheer me up with a compliment and a joke, but I was too Amber-frazzled to completely appreciate it. I continued my whining a little longer...

• My life is so exciting.
• Food stress, Amber stress, and cub scout stress. No wonder so many women work outside the home these days. It's so much easier.
• I know I'm being glum, but seriously:

I sent Jeff this picture of Amber inside the fridge, reaped a little spousal sympathy, and then soldiered on through my lists and paperwork. One of my pet peeves is when people (ok, my children) ask me for food when I am in the process of preparing food for them. It happens almost daily while I'm cooking dinner. "Mommy, can I have a snack? Can I have a little bite of that? Can I lick the spoon?" I always tell them that I am not going to pause preparing their meal to give them food! FOOD FOOD FOOD. It rules my life, and Jay isn't even a teenager yet. Amber asking me for food while I was trying to write a grocery list this morning was right along those same lines and ugh.

Remember all of those nostalgic, melancholy Amber thoughts I wrote about at the beginning of this post? They had all completely vanished after my morning of desk work with Amber all up in my business. The come-and-go nature of my motherly nostalgia (aka the motherly ache) caused me to pause and learn (or re-learn) a lesson. In the future when my nest starts to empty, I may not miss every detail of daily life with a high-strung three year old, but I will miss parts of it, like when she wore a gold crown and pink sunglasses while sitting in the stroller for my entire run yesterday (I will not, however, miss running with the stroller). It's ok not to love every part of this phase. 

It is ok for the days to be hard right now--and in the future! Having a hard day does not mean I love my job or my kids less. Having a hard day does not mean I am wishing away their childhood. It just means that life is life, and nothing can be 100% smooth sailing or perfect all the time. Opposition is an integral part of the joy, as annoying as it can be. 

 "The Queen mounted her chariot and journeyed forth into her kingdom to soak in the sunshine, view the vineyards, and smell the fresh mint fields. She declared it all most satisfactory and appealing."

 Grape vines in the foreground, mint fields in the background. Running on the bumpy gravel roads near our house is not easy with the stroller, and I rarely do it, but yesterday (Wednesday) circumstances left me with stroller-run or insanity, and I chose stroller-run. It was a gorgeous day and we both enjoyed ourselves.

Declaring a Royal Decree. 

After surviving a morning of Amber-pestering today (and finally feeding the "super-hungy" child lunch at 11am--she only ate the yogurt), I defaulted to one of my long-held foundational beliefs: kids who misbehave need more time outside. So we went for a walk and admired the newly dredged mini-irrigation-creek behind our house. It was much safer for throwing rocks in than the giant deep canal next door, so Amber was free to roam as she pleased. And she was pleased. 

Cute creek-let. Endless entertainment. It was hot in the 75 degree sunshine! 

We tossed in a scrap of wood and followed it a long way down the fast flowing ditch water. It went through two culvert pipe-tunnels and only got stuck a few times! It was surprisingly enjoyable, walking along the little stream, watching our wood-scrap raft bob in the current, and cheering when it got unstuck on its own.  

I had to lift/drag her out of this crevice and force her to walk home. Next time maybe I should bring a shade umbrella and a book, and stay as long as Amber wants.

Maybe Amber was actually "super hungy" for the great outdoors!

A morning in Sunnyside

As I go about my day, I feel WORDS build up inside of me with nowhere to go. Daytime life with a solitary toddler does not make for the most mentally stimulating of conversations, and I find myself filled to bursting with words as the day goes on. Thank goodness for a nice blog-shaped siphon! So here is the very most average everyday-ish post of all time to ease my word buildup and because I love looking back at normal stuff. It's comforting to look back and see that life was normal back then too, because my memory tends to only hold onto the big events, like Christmas and vacations. The everyday slips through the cracks, and those little details are often the most illuminating and interesting, at least to me!

 This morning while the big kids were getting ready for school, Amber stacked up two of her favorite book series and methodically paged through all 6 Mercy Watson books and all 5 Princess in Black books.

If it wasn't for her love of good literature, Amber would probably be completely feral. My one success with culturing/training this wild child has been surrounding her with so many books from day one that she couldn't help reading them and loving them. 

After dropping Jay and Rose off at school this morning, Amber and I drove home to grab my grocery list (I accidentally left it on the counter). From thence we embarked upon our local errands, consisting of:

1. Goodwill for hidden deals
2. Fiesta Foods for groceries
3. Library to refresh our bookshelf

While we drove the four miles to Goodwill, I reflected on the pure convenience of living so close to actual useful stores and how awesome it is that we could get everything we need right here in Sunnyside if we didn't feel like driving 45 minutes to a larger city. When we lived in Grandview, any time we needed anything that Safeway didn't stock, I had to plan a 15-45 minute drive to get to another store. It's so cozy to bustle about my little town, doing my shopping and then drive home in 5 minutes. A well-stocked small town is my ideal. Sunnyside may be bare bones-well-stocked, but it does have my nemesis Walmart as a catch-all to fill in the gaps of the other businesses.

At Goodwill, I found four books, a darling pink dress for Amber, and a pair of shoes for Rose. Success! Total cost: $22. Years of trial and error have taught me that the only way to have success at thrift stores is to go regularly. I try to go to Goodwill once a week, and it pays off. 95% of my children's books and clothes are thrifty finds.   

Fiesta Foods is a small local grocery store chain. They don't have deals on everything, but when they have a sale, it is a good one. The monthly ad delivered to our mailbox showed a few promising sales this week, most notably chicken drumsticks for 38 cents per pound (limit 10 pounds) and loaves of bread for 10 cents apiece (limit 2 loaves). I made two lists: one for Fiesta Foods and one for Walmart since I didn't think I'd be able to find everything at Fiesta today. It turned out that with a few slight grocery list adaptations, I was able to get everything we needed at Fiesta Foods. Take that, Walmart! I dread going to Walmart. It's so big and I always forget one thing on the opposite side of the store. I just want to get my short list of items and get OUTTA THERE! Bless you, Fiesta, for saving me from a trip to Walmart!

I spent a mere $29.88 at Fiesta Foods today. It went a LONG way:

• 3 gallons of milk
• 2.5 pounds of cheese
• 5 dozen eggs
• 6.7 pounds of chicken drumsticks
• 1 bunch of bananas
• a head of cabbage
• 6 pounds of carrots
• 2 loaves of bread

Fiesta Bonus #1: the peppy musica latina playing at Fiesta Foods makes me want to dance while I shop.

Fiesta Bonus #2: Fiesta Foods has such a friendly atmosphere! All of the employees say a jovial "hello!!" or "good morning!!" rather than a surly eye-averted grunt like at some places.

Fiesta Bonus #3: less money used on groceries means more money for books! (it's library book sale season)

Amber likes to sit facing forward in the grocery cart. Her fluffy hair tickles my chin when she sits like that.

We saved the best for last: the library. I avoid the library at times when I know it will be crowded, like Friday mornings at 10am during the preschool story time. I know I have a preschool aged child, but I can read a book to my kid any time. We don't have to suffer in a crowded room full of other kids to hear a story! One time a few years ago I accidentally showed up at the library right when story time was starting and the nice librarian was so happy to see us I couldn't bear to tell her we didn't want to stay. So we stayed and now I am extra vigilant about story time. I am shamelessly antisocial when it comes to community mother-child gatherings. If it involves fake smiling and small talk, I prefer to stay home. 

Anyways, this morning the library was silent and virtually empty, with a few older ladies browsing. Amber charged into the silent refuge and immediately found her favorite book: Spanish ABC's. I'm not sure how many times we've checked it out/renewed it, but she loves the cute pictures. I am mildly concerned that she will think H is for Ice cream (aka helado), but I'm sure she'll figure it out eventually. I found a few books and picked up our holds while Amber scampered up and down the rows. She was borderline too-rambunctious but I let it slide because she wasn't actually damaging anything. 

We used the self-checkout and walked back out to the car. Total cost: $0. Amber pushed the handicap automatic door opener to let us outside. That button is arguably one of her favorite parts about going to the library. I muscled our big bag of books in one hand and gripped Amber's arm in the other hand. I somehow managed to unlock our car without losing the child. When we hold hands and walk, Amber doesn't just walk. She jumps, floats, tugs, zigzags, and runs. It feels like I am restraining a sentient helium balloon in a windstorm. If I ever loosen my grip on her forearm even the slightest little bit, she senses it and takes off straight toward the most dangerous thing in sight (usually a road or moving vehicle). 

Quick rewind: tis the season for sunrise canal runs! I woke up early at 5:40am this morning and ran 5 miles before Jeff left for work. I recently learned the visual differences between a gopher snake (aka bull snake) and a rattlesnake. They look very similar, and in the terror of a real-life sighting I'm not sure I'd care which type of serpent it is, but at least gopher snakes aren't poisonous. I saw a gopher snake on the canal road while running this morning!! YUCK! I think it may have been dead, but I still find dead snakes incredibly alarming.

Fast forward: we got home from our errands in plenty of time to unload and organize our purchases and prep an early lunch. Per her specific request, Amber had a smoothie, Cheezits, milk, and peanut butter with Wheat Thins. I shared my smoothie with her.

We went for a walk along the canal after lunch in the warm 70 degree sunshine. I kept my eyes peeled for more snakes, but luckily we did not see any. 

When we go out, random passersby often soften their grim expressions at the sight of this little sprite and her bouncy blonde curls. Whenever I try to "do" her wild hair, it feels like I'm repressing her intense personality!  

Amber lives for sunshine, dirt, and curls. 

We had to stop by our favorite sideways tree. 

When I say "Amber and I went on a walk," what I really mean is we went outside and she dropped to swim in the dirt, pick up sticks, and collect rocks every 5 seconds. 

I have no clue how I got a picture of her face smiling and looking forward. I think her curly forelock shielded her eyes from the sun.

While Amber was collecting rocks to throw into the canal, I tried my hand at weaving a flower crown. The flowers were not as big and white as they looked all clustered together in the field, so it looks more like a grass-allergy wreath, but Amber was very happy with it.

My fairy child.

We tried adding some purple flowers that we found next to the canal, but the whole crown fell apart soon after. I need to hone my technique. 

 The sun was too bright for her to actually look at the camera, but she was still cute.

Our rule on the canal road is that Amber has to hold my hand while throwing rocks into the canal because it is a steep ledge into deep cold water, and her balance is notoriously wobbly while throwing. She kept grabbing my hand and pulling me over to the water to throw another pilfered pebble in. It's hilarious because the bank of the canal is slanted just enough to make it difficult for Amber to hit the water with her short-range rock-tossing. She is undaunted by misses, however, and simply searches out more ammo to try again. I'm sure there's a lesson or three in there.