Making Something Is One Way To Say...

Avery: It's easy as pie. Well, how easy is pie?

Preston: Not that easy. Count to Pi. One. Two. Three. Four. Whoops! Passed it! 

Me: Button, button, who's got the button. (Avery was holding one in her hand.)

Avery: I don't know who Scott the Button is.

For some reason, there was a smurf on my head. Sadie looked up at me, shook her head, and said, "You don't wook perfect." Then she took the smurf. 

Sadie asked me if she could open a package of crayons. "What do you want them for?" I asked. She replied, "Oh, I just want them for my art."

I asked Sadie who she played with in her nursery class today. She answered, "Just Annie and Dann-i-ehw and Prince Wednesday." 

Sadie honestly spends hours playing with my feet. She talks to them, dresses them up with sunglasses or her blanket, rocks them like they are babies, and wants to snuggles with my "toesies" as much as she can get away with. It is weird. I also hate people touching my feet unless there is some kind of massage going on. It is also really funny. Sometimes she prays for my feet.

Avery thinks she hit the jackpot of birthday presents because she got a volleyball net with a new ball and badminton equipment. 

My kids have spent days being entertained without using media. Bill's trick? He bought them a bunch of kinds of fabric and felt, and they have been making their own toys and other creative items. They have just been sewing everything by hand, so it takes them a really long time to make anything. There are also fabric scraps and pieces of stuffing everywhere. Probably needles that I will find by sitting or stepping on them as well.

A Wise Man Always Carries His Coat

We watched Jimmy Fallon the other night, and he was talking about #myworstbirthday. I think I could have won the worst birthday contest. Here is my story.

I was eighteen that day. I was FINALLY going on a date with this boy I sort of liked. We had tried to go out a couple of weeks before, but it had been a failure, with all kinds of misunderstandings and not meeting up in the right places. Too bad we didn't have cell phones then, or at least I didn't have one yet. This time, I was supposed to meet him after a concert that he and my brother were playing in, and then we were going to do something afterward. We stopped at my house first. He went inside first, and the door shut because it was super windy. When I went to open the door again, the whole doorknob came off in my hand. The door had locked somehow, so I couldn't open it, and neither could the people inside. No problem, I thought, I'll just go around and go through the garage. When I got into the garage, I discovered two things. First, I learned that my sister, who had come home from college for the weekend, had wrecked the car I usually drove. Second, I found that the wrecked vehicle had been pushed so close to the door that it was impossible for me to open the door to go inside. The back door was out of the question. It was pretty high up, and the house did not yet have a deck or stairs to access that door from the outside. Also, it was freezing and snowy, and I had not brought a coat. It took them probably half an hour to get the front door open. When I finally went inside, someone took me downstairs. There were maybe six to ten people there. "Um, surprise?" someone said. 

Frozen. Date ruined. Realization that I didn't have that many close friends. Sad that my family and friends weren't smart enough to throw me a coat from a window when it was well below freezing. Luckily, I could see the humor in the situation even then. I should have known by that time to follow my grandpa's frequently told advice, especially in southeast Idaho. "A wise man always carries his coat."

Carter Is Awesome!

Sadie wandered into my room around ten last night. "Why are you out of bed?" I asked her. "I can't sweep very weh-oh." I asked her why she was having trouble sleeping. She replied, "I can't sweep good because of the stars." "The stars?" I asked. "Yes. The stars are too woud out there. They keep booming. The stars are too woud for me to sweep." I finally realized what she was talking about. "You can't sleep because you keep hearing the neighbors doing fireworks?" "Yes. The fireworks are too woud," she confirmed.

Sadie brought me a juice drink she wanted to have. "Can I have it?" I didn't answer quickly enough. "Mama, may I pwease have it? Mama is awesome!" I don't feel as bad about giving in to the cuteness when it is a fruit and veggie juice drink.

Carter taught her to say "Carter is awesome!" any time she wants him to give her something or help her with something. She just figured out that she could apply the same saying to other people. While he was in Idaho, she would frequently ask me for something and end her request with, "Carter is awesome!" 

A kids Pandora station was playing. Sadie heard a song, and started to get really excited. "It sounds wike my princess song! That's MY princess! That's Ari-oh! I wuv Ari-oh! She's MY favorite princess!" She was right. It was "Part of Your World" that came on.

Our kids have never had to go to bed before. At least, that's what you would think every single night when they are appalled that they have to go to bed. How dare we tell them not to get out of bed again! And who do we think we are, making them brush their teeth before bed? We have the same routines every night. It is not like it is a surprise to them, but they act like they would never have expected such a thing as bedtime to actually happen to them. I am going crazy that it still happens and that each kid, especially the older three, gets out of bed multiple times each night. Also, it might be worse because I had about four years of good sleepers, and I keep thinking, over the last seven years, that they should go back to being good sleepers like they were when they were babies and toddlers. 

We put Sadie to bed early tonight before we went somewhere. The other kids and babysitter were supposed to stay downstairs so she could sleep. Thirty minutes later, we got a call that she had followed us outside when we left, had run down the street after us, had played in the dirt, and she finally had knocked on the door to get back inside. They called right when she came back. Nobody had any idea that she had even gotten out of bed. Apparently, nobody locked the top lock that Sadie can't unlock. I feel so blessed that nothing happened to her, other than some apparent dirt eating. 

Pitch Not Quite Perfect

Sadie was cuddling with me because she kept saying that she couldn't fall asleep. I gave her a kiss on the forehead and pretended to eat her as I gave her a few more kisses. She usually thinks it's funny and laughs. Not tonight. She said, "Mama, you spit that out. Give it back to me!" I gave her a few kisses to return the part of her that I "ate." Then she told me, "I don't want you to eat me ever again." I asked her, "Why not? You know I'm just playing with you." She replied, " I don't want you to eat me because I'm ree-oh. I'm ree-oh, just wike you're ree-oh. I'm a ree-oh gri-oh. You don't eat ree-oh gri-ohs." 

While visiting family in Idaho, Sadie wanted a cookie, but I was too tired to get her one. Bill's aunt kindly offered to get her one. Sadie didn't really know her, so she kind of freaked out for a second, shaking her head vehemently, "I wike you, Mommy. You're a better guy." (She did take the cookie and later admitted that Bill's aunt was nice.)

I would have been a horrible twelve year old boy. I hate fire and blowing things up. Fireworks stress me out with little kids around. I am not very fun on the Fourth of July, and I am not looking forward to Pioneer Day, which means even more fireworks in Utah.

Avery: Sadie likes it way better when you sing her songs at bedtime. She doesn't really want me to do it. Or Daddy.

Me: Oh, she still likes it when you sing to her.

Avery: Not that much. The songs sound a little better when you sing. I think it's because of your voice or something.

We had a little miracle yesterday. I was singing to Sadie, and Avery joined in. Avery actually matched my pitch on at least half of the notes! She usually is so off that it seems impossible that anyone could really, without trying hard, be that far off pitch. It was nice to only cringe a few times. 

Our older three kids got invited to a swimming party this evening. Bill dropped them off and came home. Over an hour later, he said, "I think we should probably run over to the party." I asked why he wanted to go there. It's not like he's what anyone would call a social person. "It would probably be good if we brought them some towels. I just realized that none of them remembered to bring one." We got there a few minutes later. My friend said that she had let Carter borrow a towel because he was shivering, and he couldn't go back in the water because the waterproof bandages on his finger had fallen off.

I was so glad when I heard that he wouldn't need stitches on his finger that he sliced open on a rusty saw while he was away from home. Now, I am frustrated that he didn't get stitches or glue on his finger because it is still split open and isn't healing well after almost two weeks! It's not infected, but it's just not closing up very well. 

Avery made some homemade ink. She brought it to the couch to show my sister, who was visiting today. She left it there, and less than a minute later, my five year old nephew found the ink and opened the container, splattering the couch and himself with a dark brown staining ink. He started screaming. I took him to wash his hands while my sister worked on the couch. He was still screaming as I washed his hands. I told him that he didn't need to cry, that we would be able to wash everything out and that he would be fine. He cried louder, "There's a ghost!" I told him that there wasn't a ghost. "Yes there is! I can see it right there!" More crying. "Aaaarrgghhh! My hands are all crazy!" I couldn't stop laughing. I laughed harder when my sister told me that any time he gets really upset, he says that there is a ghost, as if the ghost explains his screaming. Then he told me to stop laughing. 

He also brought a picture for me that he had drawn. I put it up on my fridge. He started freaking out. "Take it off! I don't want that picture on there. I don't want to see it, and if it's up there, I would have to see it anytime I go close to the fridge, and I don't want to see that picture anymore. Take it off so I don't see it!" A little while later, he took the picture home because "I don't want to look at it, but I just want this picture anyway."

Stupid

This is the kind of parent I am:

Avery: Preston said I was stupid.

Me: Ugh. You're way too smart to believe a lie like that. Just ignore him. He's just trying to make you cry.

Avery: (Gives me a look of death because I didn't get him in trouble and walks away like I am a waste of breath.)

Two minutes later:

Satan: You are stupid and lazy, and nobody likes you. People would be calling you and visiting you and inviting you to more things if they liked you. You're too stupid to write. You should just give up on your books.  Your house would be clean if you weren't so lazy. 

Me: (Starts crying and believes exactly what he says. Eats more chocolate so that the weight I gained a couple of weeks ago from the steroids will never come off.)

What a hypocrite I am!