The witching hour

Snowy Monday morning was super-fun. Monday night was NOT. The contrast between Monday morning and Monday night gave me emotional whiplash. I’ll just paste two journal entries here to illustrate:

Monday, December 10, 2018. I’m feeling all over the place emotionally right now. I cooked for two solid hours (blah) this evening after 3 hours of playing and then running (with the stroller) in the snow this morning. I’m all tuckered out! I had meat that was labeled “use by” today, and it turned out to be twice as much as I needed for the recipe I bought it for (even when I doubled the recipe), so I made another recipe with the rest of it. A few days ago I had thawed some frozen enchilada filling and didn’t end up using it so I had to make those pronto too, to avoid spoiling that meat. Meat is a big responsibility! At least I won’t have to cook for the rest of the week. I also just watched a sweet predictable sappy Christmas chick flick and it also seems to have added to my emotional state. Not to mention…

This evening Rose was in one of her worst moods yet: stubborn, ignoring me, lashing out at everyone (with an emphasis on her mother), refusing to practice piano, griping, complaining, throwing her fork across the dinner table with a shriek of rage when we wouldn’t let her eat messy enchiladas with her hands. It was hard. Everything I tried failed to reach Rose in her Mood, from gentle sympathy all the way to callous firmness. I could go into more details, but it belongs in the past and I am too drained from it to relive the details.

After dinner we tried to have FHE. Hah. Yeah right. We asked Jay and Rose to tell Amber the nativity story. Jay told it, using the nativity set as a visual aid, but Amber was so mad at not being able to play with the nativity set herself at that moment (even though she has full access to it all day while everyone is at school) that she thrashed and screamed for Jay’s entire five minute story, drowning out his words. Jeff and I both had to bodily restrain all four of her jabbing kicking limbs while Jay talked. Nobody heard what he said over Amber’s bellowing.

The instant Jay finished, I picked up a still flailing Amber, carried her to the bathroom, brushed her clenched teeth, and sat her on the toilet. I read one verse from the Book of Mormon aloud and we had family prayer. I put/unceremoniously deposited Amber in bed and asked if she would say her prayers. She said a pouty NO, so I said a short prayer for her. I don’t know if Rose said her prayers tonight. Sigh. The girls were in bed by 6:45pm. (they did have their reading lamps on for a little while).

I should add that the easygoing big brother Jay did everything he was supposed to this afternoon and more, no big deal. He’s not always perfect, but tonight was an excellent night for him to be awesome, when his sisters were busy fritzing out. Thank you, Jay. There is hope.

There are all kinds of challenges with raising kids, more than I will ever know or experience firsthand. Some barriers are diagnosed and documented, others are just inexplicable stubborn difficulties. The fact that my kid legitimately doesn’t even “have” anything (like a diagnosis explaining her behavior) but she is still behaving so atrociously makes it feel like my fault when she acts like a raging tornado. There are all too many less-visible non-diagnose-able challenges. Ours is a brilliant perfectionist superhumanly strong-willed daughter who blows a fuse whenever she feels that she’s not in control of the situation or when she’s overtired or at the end of the day or when she isn’t perfect on her first try or 100,000 other reasons. It is exhausting and I hope we (I) can get better at handling it. It’s hard to learn coping strategies when the same strategy rarely works more than once! I am plumbing the depths every time and more often than not, nothing works and I just have to be there, failing repeatedly, while she wears me down to a dull twitchy shell of a human. If Rose isn’t happy, she doesn’t think anyone else deserves to be happy either, and she’s extremely talented and persistent at making sure of it. Waaaah, but then she can flip a switch and be our sweet clever vivacious Rosie again. I can’t keep up!!!!

It snowed almost half an inch last night, and the kids still had school like normal today. Boring. We managed to squeeze in half an hour of snow playing before the school bus came. Once Jay and Rose were gone, Amber and I stayed outside together for another two hours. We built another snowman (Snow Vader), went sledding, and explored the icy canal. After that, I put Amber into the stroller and went on a laborious 4 mile run in the snow. I listened to an audiobook on low volume while I ran to take my mind off of the difficulties of pushing the stroller in the snow. It helped, but sledding was still my favorite exercise of the day!

So the DAY was good, but boy did that witching hour WITCH tonight.

Tuesday, December 11, 2018. Today was SO MUCH BETTER than yesterday, all the way through to the end (aka the kids’ bedtime). I was feeling kind of emotionally raw after last night’s jagged set of difficulties, and I dreaded the witching hour off and on all day. Blessedly, Rose didn’t have to practice piano this afternoon, (one of yesterday’s major issues), and she did her homework with very minimal balking. Jay had a bit of trouble in the bathroom, but I got him to clean up the mess once I noticed it a few hours later, hah. Amber wasn’t quite as violent and everyone liked at least part of our dinner.

This morning it was 33 degrees and raining when we arrived at piano lessons (at 7:35am). The rain stopped ten minutes after we arrived, so I gave Amber the iPad, put in my earbuds, turned on my current audiobook (The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde), and ran back and forth in front of our piano teacher’s house while Amber sat in the car iPadding it up. One length was .12 of a mile–apparently that’s the max distance from an unattended Amber that I’m comfortable with, because it’s the same distance as my driveway loops at home. I ran 5 miles back and forth, back and forth.

Back at home, (post shower), Amber and I made a double batch of bread and a double batch of peanut butter blossom cookies. Double yum! It was a lot of scooping (88 cookies) and a lot of unwrapping candies to put on top of the cookies, but Amber was a great helper and enjoyed opening dozens of foil wrappers. Right after lunch, a friend came over to watch a movie together–not just any movie, a Christmas chick flick! We watched Borrowed Hearts and it was sweet and excellent as always. Chick flicks are always better with like-minded friends.

We talked for a little while after the movie ended, and it was so pleasant to have a friend over during the day! It has been a long time since I had a friend over at my house. Too often I feel like I can’t do anything social or frivolous until after my entire day is over and Jeff is home. Most days by then I don’t feel social and I don’t want to go anywhere or talk to anyone; I just want to be alone in a soundproofed room to reclaim my equilibrium. Discovery: I can do something fun during the day, in between the work and chaos! The question is, will I have the courage to do it again?

Tonight I found out that only one of my two brand-new wolf scouts will be coming on Wednesdays this next year. Surely we will combine with the Bears? My hopes are soaring. Cub scouts has been my hardest church calling ever, including the memorable time back in 2010 when I was nearly 8 months pregnant and called as primary president. Anyways, I was so excited about these cub scout possibilities that I called Mom at 5pm to tell her.

I love my mom and how she always listens to me, whether I’m whining about cub scouts or lamenting the witching hour or extolling my latest library selection. I confessed to her how sad I felt about not being able to do anything right during last night’s drama, and also how I have felt too overwhelmed to do anything specific or extra for the church’s light the world service calendar this year. (I haven’t followed it at all.) Mom is so wise, I just drank in her reply like a dehydrated desert dweller. I can’t remember her exact words, but she said that caring and trying matter, and a mother’s life is all service, so it’s ok not to feel like doing extra this month because I’m already doing what matters most by being/doing my best for my family. Thank you, mom. Those words were balm to my sore soul. This wasn’t the first time I’ve heard those things, but I find I need to hear them regularly. My wise mother also said that our short, botched, screaming-flailing FHE last night was a triumph because we tried to do what’s right, not because it turned out well. Sigh. I got all teary when she told me this and I’m getting even more teary as I write it down.

Is there anything better than a wise, loving mother? Maybe I can be that to my kids. Time to keep on trying. Courage!

Yes I can.

If not now, then when?

I am strong.

I can and I will.

(Over the weekend, I followed the guided steps to creating my own mantra in Kara Goucher’s new book Strong, and those are the four mantras I came up with. They are rather empowering, aren’t they? I love how seamlessly sports psychology applies to regular life. I’m not big on self-help books, and I was initially interested in the book Strong because it’s also full of interesting stories of the failures and triumphs of an Olympian, but it is turning out to be quite the empowering read.)

{end journal entries}

So there it is. My most current SOUL in all of its ups, downs, vulnerabilities, concerns, uncertainties, struggles, and challenges.

For the record, Wednesday and Thursday this week have also been much smoother than Monday’s witching hour. Looking back, the girls were probably still over tired from staying up almost 2 hours later than usual at the ward Christmas party on Saturday. I will never apologize for our early bedtime again! We stick to it for a reason. It’s called sanity and peace.

One last vignette: in between songs during my piano practice this morning, Amber looked up from her toys and said quietly “I like that ‘usic.” Then she came over, opened the miniature version of the song book I was playing from and sang along for the next ten minutes. She doesn’t know many of the words, but that didn’t stop her from singing something sweetly. These moments seem few and far between, but when they happen LIFE IS GOOD and I can do this.

Snow Vader

On Monday morning, we woke up to nearly half an inch of snow. The first snowfall of the winter is magical, but the first snowfall that actually sticks to the ground is the most fun! Sadly, school was neither delayed nor canceled. My Tennessee sensibilities were slightly miffed, but we didn't let the looming school day stop us from playing! Since the temperatures were supposed to warm up by lunchtime, I told Rose she could practice piano after school so we could all go out and play in the snow before the school bus came (and before the snow melted). It was still half dark when Amber and I stepped out into the cold quiet whiteness at 7:10am (sunrise wasn't till 7:34am) Jay and Rose take snow gear very seriously and ended up using close to half of their allotted playtime putting on layers. Amber and I had nearly finished the base of a snowman by the time Jay and Rose finally emerged from the house in all of their well-muffled padding. 

Rose helped Amber and I finish our snowman and Jay built a miniature snow fort and amassed a modest stockpile of snowballs in preparation for an epic wintry battle. When the girls' snowman was done, we threw snowballs and chased each other around the yard. Jay was in heaven, laughing, dodging, and throwing. The boy may not have an exceptionally strong throwing arm, but his aim is surprisingly accurate.

We played for half an hour before Jay and Rose had to troop back inside and remove their snow gear to be ready for the school bus. I didn't say anything, but the entire morning I teetered on the edge of keeping them home from school to play because with the exception of the infamous winter of 2017, snow is relatively rare around here. It gets plenty bitterly cold enough for snow, but the precipitation just doesn't happen. Another glance at the weather forecast (37 and sunny by noon) closed the iron gate on my motherly indulgence, however, and I sent them on to school. 

For Amber and I, the fun had just begun! We stayed outside for another 2.5 hours, rambling and reveling in the snowy wonderland. We started rolling up a second snowman, but the snow was so thin and barely sticky that I lost interest in the effort (stooping and reaching is hard on my inflexible six-foot-tall frame, especially since I didn't want to kneel in the snow and soak my non- waterproof pants), so I short-cut to the end. I turned over a white five gallon bucket and plunked my snowball on top of it. The snowman's artificial, hollow-bucket body inspired me to turn him into Snow Vader. He was cutely menacing next to his traditional, if small-brained, friendly neighbor.

It was too blue and dark for good pictures (I lightened these considerably on the computer), but I always think that blurry pictures of Rose illustrate her intensity better.

I made the bottom, Rose made the middle, and Amber made the head. I started her off with a small snowball and she rolled it around for a little while so it was a fraction of a centimeter bigger come time to head the snowman.

We had some difficulties putting a face on our little snowman, but we prevailed in the end. Jay prepped for battle in the background.

Our cute snow fellow. I like it when things are positive and cooperative with my daughters. Please let us keep finding these moments in between all of the other emotional daughterly difficulties!

Jay's snow fort turned out miniature, but he said if he laid down flat and put his face down in the snow he was hidden. I didn't have the heart to tell him that it wasn't quite tall enough to protect him.

Snow Vader! Amber made it clear which snowman she liked best. She liked him so much she licked his head. The light kept changing as the sun moved higher behind the thick wall of clouds. My poor camera had quite the task, interpreting the shifting light. Some of the pictures were blue, others more yellowy. If I was better at editing and willing to take pictures not on auto setting, in raw format, maybe I could make the white balance more uniform, but ain't nobody got time for that in the snow!

With Snow Vader guarding our yard, Amber and I ventured further afield, making a quick stop in the garage to grab our new sled. Sadly there wasn't enough snow to warrant the use of my gorgeous Flexible Flyer, so we got out a blue plastic toboggan shaped sled that I scored at Goodwill for $5 last week. Normally if there's a sled at Goodwill, it's either cracked or worn so thin a crack is imminent. Not so with our blue sled. It felt brand new and Amber joyfully took it on its maiden voyage down the small hill behind our house by the driveway. The ride was a tad slow, short, and tame for her boundless sense of adventure though, so we hiked across the field, over the creek, and up the big hill out back.

Now that was a ride to remember! At the bottom of the hill there has always been a "burn pile," where Juan (the foremen/farmer/fix-it guy/jack-of-all-trades employed by our landlord tosses all of the clippings from the yardwork he does, plus old wood and branches and all kinds of burn-able items. When we dug up our garden this fall and left the heap of old tomato plants to be slowly siphoned off into our trash can over the next few weeks, Juan came and scooped it all onto his little cart and towed it behind his four wheeler out to the burn pile. Have I mentioned how much we love renting? We are lazy/bare minimum yard people!

ANYWAYS, Juan had recently done a major brush and tree clearing operation in our landlord's yard, so the burn pile was about three times its normal size. That made it stick out to the bottom of the hill where our sled wanted to slide. Before sledding, I moved over the thickest branch on the pile so I wouldn't get decapitated while sledding. That left a narrow passageway between the big brushy burn pile and the edge of the steep rocky dropoff down to the creek. It would be a tight squeeze and a bit of a feat to steer the plastic sled into that opening without crashing into the burn pile or going over the edge of the cliff! Naturally I got on the sled with Amber to keep her safe. We rocketed down the steep hill, taking every bump right in the tailbone, and almost crashed into the branches before I threw out an arm and dug in a heel to turn us just in time. 

After that we opted for the other side of the hill, which had a gentler grade but a longer slope. Amber could sled down that section by herself, and we had fun taking turns sledding, sledding together, and taking pictures of each other. Amber specifically told me to go ride the sled and give her my camera so she could take pictures of me. It was cute. I love playing and adventuring with my Amby. We sledded for quite a while--long enough for me to know that I was going to be sore from repeatedly climbing in and out of the sled. We even tried the steep bottle-neck-bottomed hill again a few times and didn't lose any organs. Then we trooped down the canal road to check out the ice on the puddles. 

We skidded down the steep sides of the canal on our bums (there were rocks at the bottom--not my favorite). I showed Amber how to break the ice with big rocks. We even stepped on the edges of the ice, then tiptoed away squealing when the ice creaked and cracked. Eventually I was able to persuade Amber to climb back out of the canal (a slippery scramble) and we walked back to the house. I quickly changed into my running shoes, removed my coat, loaded Amber into the stroller, and went for a laborious jog in the snow. I followed the crunchy snowy BUMPY rocky frozen canal road for half a mile, then turned onto a smoother road with less snow. I was feeling quite tired from sledding so it was more of a trudge than a run. To get through it, I wore headphones and listened to an audiobook (on low volume for safety).We were worn out after our morning outside, but we enjoyed that half inch of snow down to the last millimeter!

SLEDDING IS SO FUN.

Not too bad for a little girl clicking the camera haphazardly. There were a dozen or two pictures of the ground, but she did get a couple of me actually sledding too!

Walking up the shallow/safer side of the hill (that's the very edge of the burn pile on the left).

Giving an extra cheesy underbite smile before launching off down the hill again.

Amber basically fell down the canal cliff, and my descent was not much more graceful. It was slick!

Note our two slide-trails on the side of the canal. We left the sled up top to preserve it from the rocks.

No hat can fully contain those Amber-curls for long.

Amber had to try riding her bike in the snow. the training wheels slipped all over the place and she put it away quickly.

The second week of Christmas

Christmas festivities are in full swing around here! Technically we just finished the first week of December, but in the White house it was the second week of Christmas. This week we gave a gift on Friday night and another on Saturday afternoon. Giving gifts is so much fun! It helps spread one of the best gifts that Jesus gave us: LOVE.

When the kids got home from school on Friday, Jeff and I quickly wrapped Jay’s new watch, Rose’s new running shoes, and Amber’s stilts. When Jay unwrapped the watch, he was so surprised–we replaced the band on my old Garmin 35 watch and gave it to him in the original box. Rose was pleased about her new running shoes because they were just like Jay’s, with memory foam cushion inside. She had been complaining about her feet hurting when she ran, so when we decided to give Jay my watch it made sense to give Rose new running shoes.

Amber’s active gift was good old fashioned stilts. She figured out how to use them in no time and happily clomped her way around the house, wobbling and tipping every few steps. She let me try them but the plastic bent alarmingly when I stood on them, so I only took a few steps before handing them back to Amber.

After the gifts were opened, Jeff went on a run with Jay and Rose to try out their new running gear while Amber and I stayed home to make pizza dough. Friday was the first time in months that I have actually MADE pizza, and I only made the dough–Jeff did the rest! He loves his bacon mushroom cream pizza so much and is always willing to make it if there’s a crust waiting for his special sauce.

Post-run victory picture.

Oh winter, when it is virtually impossible to get a non-blurry picture indoors after 4pm.

Saturday dawned cold and gray. My weather app said “snow in view” so I peeked out the window with high-flying hopes. Nothing. Oh well. I got my running clothes on and went on a run while Jeff and Rose made crepes for breakfast. When I stepped outside this time, IT WAS SNOWING! I was giddy. Freezing, but giddy. I love running in the snow. It is so quiet and fluffy and pretty. It only snowed for about half an hour, but it was a beautiful half hour. I came back from my seven mile run to a house full of cousins. We crammed our kitchen full of cousins and crepes. It has been a while since we had the cousins over and the kids ate, frolicked, and played.

Eventually the cousins went home and we wrapped more presents. Each kid got one gift from us parents (Saturday’s gift category was “just-for-fun/individual interest,” aka no category). Rose gave her gifts to everyone. Amber and Jay both gave me gifts. I gave a gift to Jeff (boring, but useful: new shoes for work). It felt so Christmasy! We lounged and opened presents and played with the presents. Alexa played us Christmas music in the background. It was a slow, pleasant, glowy-happy family time.

In order to help our kids give more meaningfully, this year I told Jay and Rose that they were on their own financially for giving gifts to their siblings. In the past we have paid for the gifts they give each other, but it seemed like a good time to stop that. They have a modest income from running, so it seemed possible.Rose opted to make gifts for Jay and Jeff, and buy gifts for Amber and me. Jeff and I still paid for the kids’ gifts to us, and I ended up letting Rose pay for half of Amber’s gift, but we are on our way to more mindful thoughtful giving.

On Saturday night, went to our ward’s Christmas party. We had dinner and then Santa narrated the Christmas story (still scratching my head a little on that one). During the narrated Christmas story, the primary kids and the youth each sang two songs. I played the piano for the primary’s two songs, and it was my least nerve-wracking performance yet. I was still tense and all that, but I was facing away from the gym full of people so it felt safer. Our chorister accidentally skipped a verse in the five-verse Nativity Song, though, so I ended up playing it through once at the end after the kids stopped singing. Since my back was to the room, I couldn’t see the chorister and the last two verses to the song have words written at the bottom of the page of music so I couldn’t follow along as well and they sang the verses out of order anyways so I forgot how many times I had played the song through. Oh well, it was fine and the kids started shuffling off the stage about halfway through my extra play-through.

Other pictures:

• Making crepes
• Running: snow in view! Blurry because of the dark clouds and I was too happy to care.
• Crepes and cousins in the kitchen: a loud jubilant, hungry gathering.
• Jeff’s attempt at teaching Jay how to wrap a box in wrapping paper was hilarious. Jay kept crumpling the paper over the corners over and over rather than folding them. But it didn’t matter because I opened the gift ten minutes later.
• Rose drew a picture of herself giving Jeff and present. Homemade gifts really are the best.
• Using my suggestion, Rose made Jay a small box of coupons for things like “a game of chess” (she usually doesn’t want to play him because he always beats her) and “free killing me in Minecraft 10x use” (Rose gets SO MAD when Jay kills her in their joint Minecraft computer game, so she gave him a free pass for it).
• Rose gave Amber a Wonder Woman watch. Walmart has a whole wall of different character watches, and Amber’s watch band lights up when she presses a button.
• After all of that giving, Rose was very enthusiastic about opening her gift from Jeff and me: a Lite Brite for her artistic eye.
• Amber approved of the Lite Brite.
• As for Jay’s just-for-fun gift, I swallowed my dread and got him the game Risk. He was THRILLED.
• Giving Amber her present…Diana Prince/Wonder Woman in her fancy stolen blue dress! There’s a hidden sheath for her magic sword in the back. This was so perfect for Amber, since she always carries a weapon with her princess dresses.
• Amber gave me a book I’ve been wanting, written by one of my running idols, Kara Goucher. Rose gave me a book of Disney piano music (not pictured).
• Childlike Wonder. (pun intended)
• Amber kept saying “where’s Wonder Woman?” She couldn’t remember the scene where Diana steals the blue dress to disguise herself at the fancy party, so she found her own Wonder Woman Halloween costume and put Diana in that. It was a tad too big.
• Jay gave me two rolls of stick-on LED lights (Jeff gave him the suggestion). We stuck them to our ceiling on Saturday afternoon. Alexa can turn them on and off and change their color with a voice command. Our family room was like a bowling alley with all the different colored bright lights! When we got back from the ward Christmas party that night, however, the lights had lost their sticky and fallen from the ceiling. We are currently still brainstorming ways to hang them with minimal holes in the house.
• Rosie hurt her foot while helping move the stools around for us while we hung the lights. She said “I’m NEVER going to be able to walk AGAIN!” Dramatically, of course. She was fine an hour later.
• The primary kids sang two songs at the ward Christmas party on Saturday night. I played the piano (in this picture I am at the piano, mostly obscured by someone in a Santa hat)
• Trying out Amber’s stilts. Isn’t it so funny how playing with other people’s gifts is ok, but the minute other people want to play with your gifts, it is NOT ok? Rose did not understand this at all. Amber actually was ok with it, as long as she could sneak in some time with Rose’s Lite Brite…
• Oranges go with Christmas.
• Sunday afternoon, we promised to play Risk with Jay. So we did. It was my first time ever playing that lengthy game, and it really was much more enjoyable than Dungeons and Dragons, which we have played twice as a family for Jay. The main problem for me with Risk was how long it took. We played for 90 minutes and then cut it off, counting armies and territories to determine the winner (Jeff, by a landslide, although I was positioned for a major push for Europe and Asia that probably would’ve won me the game in another two hours or so). After our game was over, I joked on Instagram that my labor and delivery of Amber was faster and less painful than our family game of Risk. The labor and delivery actually was faster, but sitting on a folding chair for 90 minutes is way less painful than giving birth, so I guess I exaggerated a bit.

I take 100 pictures an hour because every couple of months I get one of these treasures. Heartburst, Jeff is such an excellent father to his daughters.

Merry Christmas again!

Weekdays

Last week was normal, but normalcy is still worth recording. The week started off strong on Monday with the arrival of my first pay stub in over a decade. It was my pay for coaching cross country. I was surprised at how GOOD it felt to have earned some money. Motherhood is my biggest best job, but it is not a job that can be quantified on paper. It was satisfying to complete a job that came out to $$ on paper. Plus, Jeff and I have designated our coaching pay to be our travel funds, so our next international trip felt that much closer when I opened my pay statement.

On Tuesday, in a burst of generous maternal indulgence, I dug out a bottle of nail polish and painted Amber’s fingernails. Then I let her paint my toenails. It was messy but Amber felt beautiful and thought I was beautiful too. I try to put one specific Amber-activity on my to do list every day so I don’t get too caught up in Other Stuff. This intentional one-on-one time is so good for both of us. If only our daily activity would be enough to keep Amber content to play by herself for the rest of the day! Amber has a knack for attacking, destroying, and pestering until I can’t think straight, much less finish anything else besides defend myself from her intensity and feel guilty for being peeved at her. High spirited children are tough on introverts!

I cleaned my bathroom this week and did two small-but-satisfying repairs. First I dismantled our faucet to clean out the screen on it. The water flow has been slowing more and more over the past few months till it was at less than half power and was a flickering trickle. Google to the rescue! I successfully removed the tip of the faucet and dumped what looked like tiny pebbles out of the screen thingy. Now we have a nice strong stream of water in our sink. I also fixed the loose toilet seat while I was in there. It has been loose for weeks and weeks, but I didn’t know how to tighten it. A quick Google search revealed a simple solution and in the blink of an eye, our toilet seat was nice and snug once more. After completing these repairs, I felt a little sheepish for putting them off for so long because they were so easy, but I also felt like quite the accomplished handy woman. I may have strutted and preened just a little when I invited Jeff to take a look at our bathroom when he got home later that day. He was duly/dutifully impressed, haha.

Jay is getting so good at loading the dishwasher! That boy is growing into such a responsible guy. I love the sight of the men of the house doing the dishes after dinner.

It was COLD this week. VERY cold. I don’t like running with the stroller in the cold. I hit a wall with running when the temperature dropped into the 20s, and I had to get creative to convince myself to run. I turned on a movie for Amber and ran driveway laps around the gravel loop that circles our house (.12 of a mile each lap) while either talking on the phone or listening to an audiobook. On Tuesday I ran five whole miles– my longest driveway distance ever– while talking to my mom on the phone. I used my bluetooth headphones and kept my phone in my pocket. The voice in my head responded when I talked!

On Thursday, I was feeling extra cold, tired, and unmotivated for running. I didn’t run in the morning and snuggled up to watch a Christmas movie on Netflix with Amber after lunch. Jeff called and offered to meet me at the track after school and take Amber while I ran, and I couldn’t resist the offer. I ran with Jeff on the track during his cooldown, then he drove Amber home while I ran home. I met Jay on the canal road while near home and ran the last half mile of his daily mile with him. The breeze picked up and the wind chill dropped, but I ran with Rose afterwards. We both about froze. I kept trying to get her to run faster so we would stay warmer and be done sooner, but she was in tired-stubborn Rose mode and refused. So we trotted our little 12:30 mile and I felt like I was in the early stages of hypothermia when we got home. Anything for the run!

After our run on Thursday, Rose still had spelling homework AND 12 minutes of piano practicing to finish before she could relax (she had only finished half of her daily 25 minutes of practicing that morning before school). She was already overwrought from the long day and the cold run. I could see a Rose-storm a-brewing, so I got out the Cheezits and lined them up on the table. Rose had to write each spelling word three times, so I gave her a Cheezit for every word. She settled right down and did her homework without complaining, pausing to munch a Cheezit after writing each set of words. But the piano practice was too much. She totally melted down and I put her in her room to recover. Emotions are strong in our Rose-girl. Send help.

To Amber, a princess is a girl in a pretty dress with a crown. When I was trying to explain what an angel was to her this week, I ended up telling her that an angel is a princess with wings. It’s basically true, if you think about it…

 The carnage.

She was so happy, and kept taking off my socks all week to admire her handiwork.

Post-bath snuggles. She insisted on having half her face hidden.

Boundless energy, in spite of the gloomy sky.

The Cheezit lineup.

A few rounds of Thursday night Mario Kart. Amber had her own working controller for the first time this week, and I felt a tiny bit left out before realizing that this meant I wouldn’t ever have to play Mario Kart because it’s a 4 player game. FREEDOM! I did sit in the room with them while they played so I would still be present for family time, even if I was reading rather than playing the impossible video game.