Art Therapy

This week, Rose and I have been feeling a little bit…

…you know. My patient sweet Mom sure knows (I tend to call her too much when it’s one of those weeks). I was planning on constructing a moany-post about all the things that have been driving me crazy this week, interspersed with tragically cute Rose pictures like this one, but I don’t really feel like thinking about it all any more. I’ve mentioned all the annoying things before. Once was probably already too much!

Instead, let me tell about things that helped lift the grrrrr-ness.

We went to our favorite park to get OUT of our blasted apartment and have some space. Picnic!

My kids sure have inherited my insta-red face. Their cheeks FLAME in ten minutes or less of playing out in the heat. It’s cute but it always makes me think they’re overheating. So I give them plenty of water.

While Jay and Rose played, I sat in the shade under a big tree and wrote a letter to my missionary brother, Kyle. Yesterday, I was looking through old files and I found a video that made me miss him a lot:

I love Kyle. Who could help loving him after watching this video? Real men play the piano.

Anyways, the park was nice and open and shady and fun.

But it wasn’t long before we were back to this. AHHH! We’re down to the last 2 weeks of living in this apartment, and every day feels like a year. That’s exactly what Rose is thinking in this picture.

Next distraction! Buckets of water to play in. Nothing like a nice grassy front yard to play in. My poor little prisoners.

I love that enormous hat.

It wasn’t long before Jay dumped his bucket out all over the patio and the ant hills in the cracks were flooded. Then Rose came over and drank up the leftover dirty water. Shudder.

Then we had to come back inside again. Ho hum. Jay really has been so good-natured this week. Thank goodness! I’ve got to tell one memorable moment with him and the potty:

Jay ran into the bathroom and removed his shorts and underwear, but a little poo escaped before he made it onto the potty, so he took a scrap of toilet paper and was trying to pick it up when I came in. I said “just go get on the potty!” not wanting any more plops to land on the floor. So he went and did his business. I cleaned up the floor. When Jay was all done and climbing off the potty, he lost his balance and fell off his stool, landing on his bum on the floor, with one arm in the poopy potty up to the elbow. His booty left a poop-smudge on the floor where he landed. I tried not to freak out or laugh or puke. But I was chuckling and groaning and gagging all at once while I fished him out and wiped and scrubbed him down. He was quite calm and nonchalant about the whole thing. It was just his crazy mother that couldn’t figure out whether to bust up or barf.

Next up: art therapy. While Rose was taking her second nap yesterday, I got out the watercolors that I got for my birthday, and Jay and I went to town. It was surprisingly relaxing to brush blurry wet colors onto paper. Jay did these two pictures (I helped with the fuzzy eewok on the left).

I painted a sunset. It was so relaxing. This reminded me of one of my favorite things about this area: the large, sweeping SKY and the endless horizon with gorgeous sunrises and sunsets. I really felt my “inner zen” coming back while I splashed colors onto paper. How cliché—art therapy! Don’t knock it till you try it, I guess.

Another form of escape/calming/relaxation this week has been GOOD MUSIC. Something that was said in church a few weeks ago has really stuck with me. The topic was music. The speaker said that we spend so much time avoiding the bad music that it’s often easy to forget the POWER of GOOD music. Good music invites the Spirit and it’s a powerful tool against evil. I have been making an effort to turn on some good, happy music once every day. It really does help me feel better. The other night Jeff and I divided to conquer: he cleaned the kids and I cleaned the kitchen. I turned on some classical music because I was feeling stressed and tired after a long day. Jeff came out and said “are you going to your happy place?” Ha, it’s true though, good music gets me to my “happy place” faster than anything else.

Good books are my favorite escape. I recently discovered Richard Peck’s young adult books (through our book club). They are cute and clever and happy. Jay and I have found a treasure trove of awesome story books at our library. Here’s a list of the cream of our crop, if you want to check `em out:

Hey, Pancakes! –Tamson Weston
Stuck –Oliver Jeffers
My Dog is a s Smelly as Dirty Socks –Hanoch Piven
Shaggy Dog and the Terrible Itch –David Bedford
Big Chickens –Leslie Helakoski
Oh, Ducky! –David Slonim
POUCH! –David Ezra Stein
Bubba and Beau, Best Friends –Kathi Appelt
Toot and Puddle –Hollie Hobby
and any books by Judy Sierra

There are so many more, but these are our more recent discoveries. If I was really detailed, I’d attach a hyperlink to each of these titles, but I’ll let you discover them for yourself. Picture books are so much fun. We read at least 5 every day.

We’re doing our best to smile through the cranky-crowdedness!

Sometimes it’s easier just to wait it out.

I’ve always wanted to do this…

2-in-1

HA!

Apparently I’ve always wanted to do this too:

…because dressing up in 1980’s workout clothes was actually kind of fun…until I had to go out in public! I sprinted to the car to avoid explaining myself to the neighbor’s kids. My friend Ashleigh had an 80’s birthday party yesterday. I used some fleece scraps and sewed myself some leg warmers and a sweat band. I didn’t know that leg warmers would be quite that warm—I was boiling the whole time!

I know, I know, “Where’s the one bare shoulder/baggy shirt? And your lipstick and purple eyeshadow?” I didn’t want to sacrifice my only pink shirt. Or my modesty. And I just don’t have patience for makeup, so I don’t even own a palette of colors to paint myself with. Boring female. Rose saw me getting all eighties-ed up, and she patted her head and said “dah! dah!” (head). Clearly she was asking for a headband of her own. So I gave her one too, and she didn’t even rip it off! If I want her to wear cute bows and hairbands, I guess I have to wear them too.

As for Jay and Rose, they’ve always wanted to fly off in their rocket ship! I did my best to be their motor, but I’m just not NASA material and we didn’t get very far. Probably because the carpet-to-plastic coefficient of friction was too high. Just a guess.

[I love unearthing random bits of scientific trivia that are still wedged deep in my brain from back in my more scholarly days… and then peeking at Wikipedia to make sure I remembered it right. This time I won. Hey, a victory over Wikipedia is still a victory.]

Why is it so fun to squeeze my two little sweetfaces into small places together?

GOLD MINE

I’m rich:

Rose knows she has to say “May I have a bite, please?” to get a bite of my ice cream. I’d say she’s almost there.

We discovered a fun new game today while I was supposed to be folding laundry.

Last week at the temple grounds, I took this lovable video of Rose going down a “hill” that she deemed too steep to walk down safely.

 

Jay loves books. LOVES them. We used to go to the library every other week for a fresh dozen story books, but I’ve had to switch to once every week because we read these books to death. Jay learns the stories and reads them to himself too! Here he is reading part of Toot and Puddle: A Present for Toot. On the second page he really does say “A nuthatch!” because that’s what Toot says while he’s bird-watching. (He actually had to go potty while I was taking this video—that’s why he’s being a Mr. Squirmypants)

And last but not least, Jeff has some sweet story SKILLS. I read lots of books to Jay and Rose each day, but when Daddy comes home, the REAL fun begins. Even though I’ve read all the books a zillion times, when Jeff reads them, I have to pause and listen and LAUGH MY HEAD OFF!

Springtime (and more)

Warm weather is such a welcome change for yard-less children, and anyone who’s been cooped up with them! We love going outside into the blinding sunshine. Life has been so pleasant now that it’s warm. Yes, at the end of many days I feel so emotionally drained that all I want to do is watch an episode of Dr. Who with Jeff and get a foot rub, but I can’t help feeling hopeful in the spring, even when daily life is exhausting.

Rose’s hair is just about long enough for pig tails! I can barely pinch it into two painful little paint brushes.

Luckily I got a few pictures of these little twigs before Rose ripped them out at nap time. I hope she likes wearing her hair in cute doos soon, because I love doo-ing it!

She woke up with the most amazing post-piggy-bedhead that I’ve ever seen.

Oh, and here’s Rose’s post-bath hair.

And my post-run hair. Yikes! I have a few select locations around town that I feel ok about parking the stroller and letting Jay and Rose get out to play while I run laps around them. The high school track is one of them (on days they leave the gate unlocked). Also, I got some running sunglasses. After 3 years of living in this sun-drenched place, I finally switched from hat to sunglasses. They were almost too cool for me, but I got them anyways. I love the brightness here when it’s polarized.

And now since I’ve moved from springtime to hair to sunglasses, I may as well digress further and add a jumble of pictures with no particular storyline, because they make me happy:

We got Rose a swim costume this month. Target has these cute little shirt-bikini bottom combos that give a little bit more coverage than the traditional bathing suit. The little one-pieces were rather adorable, but I went all boringly practical and got Rose one with sleeves to protect her little shoulders.

After I dragged Jay and Rose through part 2 of the monthly grocery shopping, we went to Richland’s Howard Amon Park. It is gorgeous and shady with a giant playground and cool park benches that are on chains so they swing like porch swings. There are sweeping views of the Columbia River.

It was 80 degrees out but that’s awesome park weather when you have lots of shade and no humidity. We could’ve stayed all day if I didn’t forget hats and sunscreen. And if Rose didn’t need a nap. Jay wanted to ride in the baby swings with Rose, so I pounced on the opportunity of having them both tied down and took some pictures.

My little angel girl with her halo of sunshine. I love how strawberry her hair is in this picture.

Jay loved the spiral tunnel slides. Once I had him hold Rose on his lap and go down with her. It was hilarious. He had a death grip around her neck (which I fixed before launching them), and they went soaring and bumping around the curves. When I finally got to the bottom of the slide, Jay was gone and Rose was teetering around looking slightly dazed. I was cracking up.

Remember how excited I was about Rose’s little pink sandals? Oh boy. Now that it’s been warm for a while, those sandals STINK! I didn’t know a little girl’s feet could make such a grown-up smell. And even if I was willing to commit the socks-with-sandals faux-pas, her socks are too bunchy and I can’t cram her feet into the sandals when she has socks on.

So I decided to alternate between superstink sandals and her too-big leather moccasins. It was great to be running around the track and see my cuties toddling around plucking up grass and trading hats. Jay and Rose are becoming such buddies! It’s fun to watch.

Jay is peewing me with his stick-gun, and Rose is fixing the sprinkler. I wish I was as flexible as she is.

This is out of order—oh well—on monthly grocery trip part 1, we stopped at the Columbia River Temple and took a walk around the grounds.

Side Ramble: One of my goals is to just let myself slow down and enjoy each day instead of rushing around trying to get things done. That way we can take advantage of the FUN things in the Tri Cities area as well as the stores, since we do have to drive 45 minutes to get there. That’s why I broke the monthly shopping down into 2 trips this time: Part 1: Costco and Target, Part 2: Winco and Walmart (I recently started forgiving Walmart for its stupidity and now I occasionally stop there).

Jay loves the Temple. I really hope nobody could hear us through those windows. I tried to keep Jay and Rose quiet, but the occasional sound did burst forth.

We caught the tail-end of the tulips.

Jay’s famous headlock hug. Every night before bed, we all give each other hugs and kisses. Jay does this headlock to Rose and plants a kiss on wherever is closest: her ear, her hair, her eye, etc…you get the idea.

Jay wouldn’t give up his trip around the pansy circle long enough to join us for a picture. I probably couldn’t think of a satisfactory explanation to his eighth “why” he should come over, so he didn’t stop for the picture.

Sniff, in 20 years she could be married!

Jay LOVES the fountain at the temple. He goes up and down the stairs, admiring the water. Leaving is tragic every time.

Climbing. The activity of choice 9 times out of 10.

I’m super impressed if you’re still reading this—I try not to be too rambly on here, but if you can believe it, our life is not always packaged into cutesy little episodes and quaint little stories with accompanying pictures. Usually it’s more a rambling chain of cute pictures punctuated with meltdowns, bruises, kisses, and picnics.

I can’t wait to package THIS story up:

It’s almost ours! 3 1/2 weeks till closing day! That saucy sign out front says “Too Late!” flaunting the realtor’s ability to sell houses or something. Don’t you love how it’s white? It’s the White House! The other Whites—Jeff’s parents—live in a brown house 4 houses down the street from here. So ours is THE White house, but theirs can’t be the Brown house because my parents are the Browns, so their house is the Brown House (even though it’s technically tan). The real question is what should we call the Brown house owned by the Whites?

Ok, I was going to be done, but do you want to see the back yard? I went over last week to check it out, and I got some pictures!

The appraiser had the bank remove the giant rotting saggy porch and fix and paint the remaining porch. This house used to have an above ground pool with a deck built around it. That wasted a good yard! We will need to plant some grass… if only they’d let us! But we have to like own the place first or something. I hope I wasn’t trespassing to take these pictures…

Here’s the view from the other side of the yard.

And a view from the porch. The neighbors seem to have a lovely lilac bush/tree. Those big poles above the fence hold up a net so the yards don’t get bombarded with soccer balls from the high school teams.

Ok, I’m done now. Oh wait—one more. In addition to asking WHY a couple hundred times each day, Jay has started drawing people every now and then (this is Luke Skywalker):

Hey, I just remembered that I have a couple cute videos to post too…

…no, I’ll resist. For now.

Sunday Morning

This morning dawned bright and springy with happy chirpy children. Jeff went to church early for a meeting. I felt like a supermom for giving Jay a hair cut and bathing, dressing, and feeding both children (and myself) before Jeff came back to pick us up for church. Maybe it only worked because I didn’t eat breakfast in the midst of the hustle-bustle (fast Sunday and all). Who knows.

Anyways, when Jeff returned, we buckled the kids into the car and gave them each a little toy to hold/play with on the 17 minute drive to church. Rose’s “toy” was an unopened Nature Valley granola bar (she likes the crinkle). Right as we were merging onto the highway, Rose made this weird noise. When I looked back, she had rammed the granola bar into her tonsils and triggered her gag reflex. You know what’s coming…yes, a much stinkier, yuckier version of Rose’s breakfast was soon globbing all over her crisp clean very cute Sunday dress and down into the car seat.

Jeff pulled over onto the shoulder of highway 82 and I jumped out to try and maybe mop up the barf and salvage the dress and the freshly washed babe underneath it. I grabbed our stash of napkins from the glove box to do the job, but the wind snatched them from me and blew them down the highway. There was too much yucky-ness for some wimpy fast food napkins to handle anyway. Recognizing defeat, we accepted the fact that we’d be horrifically late to church, and we started for home.

Except there are no exits on the highway between Grandview (where we live) and Prosser (where our church building is). So we had to drive all the way to the first Prosser exit (5 very long, stinky-pukey-stench-ed minutes), and then turn around and drive the 10 even longer ickier minutes back to our home. Did I mention that there was a little barf on my hands during that drive? Shudder. Jeff and I were glad to be fasting because there was no food in our bellies to threaten us as we breathed in Rose’s fumes on that intense drive home.

At home I gave Rose a second bath and put her in a fresh dress. We rinsed out all the grossness from the car seat cover, spread a blanket over the hard plastic seat, buckled everyone in, and once again we were off to church (but not before I put a roll of paper towels, a big pack of wet wipes, and a change of clothes in the trunk). Nobody got to play with toys on this second drive.

We arrived at church 45 minutes late, shattering our family record of tardiness by a solid 35 minutes. Sacrament meeting has never felt so short! Luckily, once we got out of the smelly car into the fresh air (and settled our own writhing stomachs), we were able to laugh heartily about this completely unpredictable predicament.

Our sweet Rose.

What are the odds?

A few weeks ago, after Jeff and I saw The Hunger Games movie (and loved it), I got the whole Hunger Games trilogy for my Kindle. I read straight through all 3 at lightning speed, even though I’ve read them before. “Happy Hunger Games! May the odds be ever in your favor!” The first time I read those books, I was in the middle of my Rose-pregnancy-ultrasickness. The books were a little gross to me then because they talk about food so much in the Hunger Games. Well, fast forward almost 2 years: those same books were recently a very nice distraction for me while I was dealing with an unforeseen situation.

I shall intersperse the story with un-related cute pictures to make it look nice.

Soooo, on April Fool’s Day, I took a positive pregnancy test. April Fool’s Day, of all days!  It was a HUGE surprise to say the least—I’d been counting on (and looking forward to) a little bit of a break from pregnancy. But those two pink lines were bright, so I immediately started mentally prepping myself for months and months of agonizing illness. I bought 3 kinds of crackers. I got a prescription for Zofran (anti-puke-pills). And the symptoms started coming—food was fast losing its savor, and my energy was low. I didn’t exactly feel ready to go through all that again so soon, but I figured we want another baby some time, so why not now?

Two weeks later, on Friday the 13th, I woke up feeling...damp. One trip to the bathroom told me that I wouldn’t be needing those crackers and Zofran after all. April Fool’s Day to Friday the 13th. What a pregnancy. I spent the next 2 weeks adjusting my mindset back to not-pregnant. Even though I hadn’t ever quite gotten used to the idea of being pregnant, it still took a while for my brain to agree with my no-longer pregnant body. Let’s just say that April was an intense, high-speed, loop-de-loop emotional rollercoaster!

Of course I was sad about having a miscarriage, even if the whole pregnancy was unexpected. But I am very grateful that it happened so early (at just under 6 weeks), than after I had dealt with the awful morning sickness for a while. That’s always been my fear—doing all that barfing and having no baby to show for it. Since it was such an early miscarriage, I didn’t ever even have to go to the doctor! Phone calls and text messages got me through.

I don’t know how I feel theologically about miscarried babies—is that little sesame seed really a spirit? I don’t really think it matters/makes a difference to know in this life, since creation is an eternal…activity. Although there were a few days that I felt sad about losing my little sesame seed, I do feel slightly guilty for being mostly relieved that I “got off easy.”

When the time is right, I will be more than happy to have another one of these cuties. But for now, I’ll enjoy the ones I’ve got!
And nice, big dinners.