Something to be thankful for

Rachel has slept through the night twice in a row, beginning on Thanksgiving. I'm not writing anything in ink to document her as an Official Night Sleeper yet -- but I'm beginning to think she loves me after all! She loves me Six and a Half Hours worth. Maybe if I am a very good mom she will learn to love me even more than that soon.

And to the very few (pretty much just their grandparents) wondering about the welfare of the Little Liars, they are back in my graces again. Not my good graces, mind you, but my graces nonetheless.



In fact, Braden showed a little insight yesterday that made me laugh. We got out the Christmas decorations and storybooks, and he picked up *The Best Christmas Pageant Ever* for the first time. After reading the first chapter, Nathan quizzed him to see if he was understanding the book enough to continue. He told us that it was about some kids named the Herdmans who were 'the worst kids ever' because they burned buildings and told lies and smoked cigars. Then he paused and said with a wry smile, "Kind of like me and Cassidy the other day!" Minus the cigar-smoking, of course.

Bad Day

Yesterday, 6 year old lies.  Gets grounded.  Lies again.  Gets grounded worse.  We make up something to do as a family just so he can watch us and miss out.  Had plans to do something else as a family, but have to postpone because he lied.  He has to stay in his room all day today.  Baby cries.

Today, 8 year old does a halfway job at one of her chores.  Gets in trouble.  Lies.  Gets in trouble and gets another job added for a consequence.  Does a halfway job at the consequence chore.  Lies again.  Lies again.  Lies again.  Is banished to her room.  Husband has to drive all the way home from work to deal with the lies.  In the meantime, I find out she's been taking her frustrations out on a piece of brand new furniture.  She will probably sleep on the floor tonight to remind her to treat furniture nicely.  Baby cries.  Mom cries.

This morning, 3 year old has watched Dora nonstop.  When asked to turn it off for lunch, she cries too.  Baby cries again.  Spits up four times on her newly bathed self.

I try to clean the bathroom, only to realize the toilet is plugged.  I get plunger.  Feel like crying but don't.

Wish I had showered today, but haven't got to it yet.  Maybe I'll tell a lie and pretend like I've showered when I haven't.

Happy Thanksgiving to me.  It'll be better tomorrow, right?

I've Been Tagged a Lott (Anne Lott, that is)

Anne tagged me, and since she is older than my mom, I feel honor-bound as if I had received an assignment from a parent, to complete it.  Plus I like her, so here goes.

7 Weird Things about me

1.  I don't throw a container away until I've used every last drop of its contents.  Toothpaste, makeup, foundation, butter, and many more.  This does not apply to Rubbermaid containers with moldy food in them.

2.  I have to shampoo my hair every day because it is oily.

3.  I don't really like the Twilight series that much.  (Oh the Horror!  Please still be my friends.)

4.  I have a small birthmark on my upper thigh that looks kind of like the Playboy bunny.  Too bad the rest of me looks nothing of the sort.

5.  I can tell you the make and model of just about any car on the road, and many times about what year it was made too.  Honest to goodness.  I don't know the names of the people who live around the corner from us, but I know they drive an Oldsmobile Alero.

6.  I love butter, pecans, and chocolate chip cookie dough, but I hate their respective ice creams.

7.  I make a growling noise when I get frustrated.

10 Years Ago

1.  I took a class called Pathophysiology from the hardest professor in the zoology department.  It kicked my butt, but I got an A.

2.  I fainted for the first time in my life.

3.  I went to my first-ever corn maze.

4.  I bought my first car.  It was a 1992 Toyota Tercel with two doors and no air conditioning.  The car was a great, reliable purchase, but the no air conditioning part was a big mistake.

5.  I applied to BYU's baccalaureate Nursing program.  I worried about getting accepted, but found out later grades counted more than the application itself, which was used as the tie-breaker.  I shouldn't have worried.

5 Things on my To-Do list

1.  Finish reading Angela's Ashes.  I got halfway through really quickly, and then have been too busy (or too forgetful) to pick it up for five days.

2.  Go shopping and buy some new shirts and Sunday clothes that fit and are in style.  I'm still rockin' my three years ago wardrobe from post-Rebecca.

3.  Write our Christmas letter and send it out in a timely fashion.  I already bought the stamps, so I'm halfway there.  (Isn't going to the post office half of the Christmas letter battle?)

4.  Cull the remaining maternity clothes from my closet, box them up, and deliver them to my pregnant sister-in-law.  All but the last one done.

5.  Buy 20 pounds of macaroni noodles from the church's Home Storage Center to put in the bucket with the fancy spinning Gamma lid I bought.  It is for everyone but me:  Nathan and the kids like to eat macaroni and tomato juice, of which I am not a fan.

5 Snacks I enjoy (recently, that is)

1.  Pecan halves

2.  Sugar free pudding, these days

3.  Yogurt

4.  String cheese

5.  A handful of Total Raisin Bran

5 Things I would do if I was a Millionaire

1.  Buy my kids shoes made out of real leather instead of All Man Made Materials.  Then I could shine the scuffed toes with shoe polish instead of a black Sharpie.

2.  Buy really nice gifts for my family members for Christmas.

3.  Put my 3-5 year old children in real preschool instead of taking turns teaching joy school at the house.  If I'm honest, having my turn is not my favorite thing to do, even though I like the kids being in a group with other children from the neighborhood.

4.  Hire a lawn boy for Nathan.

5.  Get laser hair removal.   Bye, bye razor.

5 Places I have lived

1.  Provo, in a dumpy apartment while my parents went to school

2.  Houston

3.  Seguin, TX

4.  Orem

5.  Provo again, in a dumpy apartment while I went to school

5 Jobs I have had

1.  Copy center employee

2.  Telecenter phone operator

3.  Table busser

4.  Car insurance telemarketer

5.  Labor and delivery nurse

I tag Amber and Melissa.

Baby Houdini

At 3 a.m. I awoke to Rachel's angry crying.  Not just the "I'm hungry" cry, but the "you'd better get in here before my vocal cords rupture" cry.  I stumbled to her room to find her mashed up against the crib rail, completely naked except for her diaper!  Now, lest you think that's how she was left, I must establish that Nathan put her in bed at 11:15 p.m. in the center of the crib, wrapped up like a burrito in a lightweight blanket, and wearing a Carter's nightgown like these below:

They are the kind of nightgowns whose necks stretch to fit over the head easily, but I thought it was quite a trick to wriggle out of it.  I imagined it to be a fluke, thinking maybe if Nathan had pinned her arms down inside the Blanket Burrito she was more streamlined than normal and that had assisted her exit from said pajamas.  You know, like a little mad baby torpedo, shooting through crib space.

I got her into a new nightgown -- at 3:00 in the morning I decided the old one was not to be trusted -- and fed her.  Not anxious for a repeat performance, when I put Rachel back in bed I made sure to leave her arms outside the blanket when I wrapped her up, and also placed her right smack in the center of the mattress.

She was pretty darn angry again at 6:00 a.m. when she awoke for breakfast, so I thought maybe I had made the cardinal Mother Sin of sleeping through her crying for a little while.  Not so.  There she was, naked again, all scrunched up in the corner of her crib and squished against the rails.  

Two resolutions from last night:

1. I should keep a camera in her room to capture her late night antics, because goodness knows I wasn't trekking downstairs to look for it in the middle of the night.  
2. Rachel has lost nightgown privileges.  Let's see her figure out how to wriggle out of pajamas with snaps.  (I was going to say 'I dare her' to defy the snaps, but I'm afraid she'd rise to the challenge!)
   

A More Economical Skin Solution

We agreed to do a 30-day trial of soft water, so we had a plumber here today to install it.  Becca was sitting on my lap in the living room while he worked, and she asked me what was making all of the banging noises in the basement.  I didn't want to go into a whole big explanation, so I told her there was a man down there fixing our water so that she wouldn't have dry, itchy skin anymore.

Just a few moments later, she stated, "Lotion and banging noises make your skin stop itching."

Don't tell Superior Soft Water, or they'd never sell anymore of these bad boys!

I was culturally insensitive

I grew up in Texas with a lot of Hispanic kids at my school. It is customary in the very Catholic country of Mexico to name little boys after the Savior.  

I knew kids were named "Hay-soos" but I didn't find out that it was spelled "Jesus" until 2nd grade when a kid in my class wrote his name on the chalkboard. I was so offended and told him that wasn't his name and threatened to tell on him to the teacher if he didn't erase it.  

Needless to say, I was the one who ended up looking like the dummy that day. I think fighting with a Hispanic kid about his name is probably the ultimate in Not Being PC.

The Baby Disclaimer

Yesterday Rachel wasn't her perfect-for-a-baby self.  She seemed to be hungry all day long, and had the misfortune of that day landing on the same day I was really busy at the house trying to do laundry and clean the kitchen and drive the school carpool and take Cassidy to dance and run to the grocery store.  

Poor kid, she was hungry right at the beginning of dinner and started crying so loud that I put her infant car seat in the bathroom and shut the door because it was the closest room that had a door to close.  She was still in her car seat carrier because I was hoping she would stay asleep after her car ride to the dance studio, and I figured she could wait 7 minutes while we ate.  Nathan said that the bathroom is a gross place to have a Baby Time Out.  I told him it wasn't gross.  It would have been gross if I had put her in the toilet.

She really is a great baby almost all of the time, and I am not going to throw in the towel any time soon.  If I loved breastfeeding more (I pretty much just tolerate it because it is good for her health and our bank account) and if I was more patient (once a baby goes for 3-4 hours between feedings I unrealistically expect that to happen all the time) and if she enjoyed sitting in her swing or bouncer chair (she seems to feel the same way about them that I feel about breastfeeding). . . . . . . . . . . . 

THEN I wouldn't have had a bad moment.  I don't really think she hates me.  (But thanks to all my friends who gave me online sympathy.  Do you call that an i-hug?)