Realization

I just got home from walking around a grocery store for a full hour. I also went to the post office.

I just realized that my shirt is completely inside out. And has been since I got dressed this morning.

Need a Reminder?

If you're a mom (and I'm willing to bet that if you're reading this, you are), and you ever find yourself feeling frustrated and maybe giving up a little bit (like I know I often do), please do yourself a favor and go read this post at Creative Construction: Life & Art. Miranda does a fantastic job at reminding her readers about the choices we make in our perspectives, and how it can affect our mothering.

Random Updates

Jacob woke up this morning with a fever. Ahh... we were so eager to get out today, to go see a free movie at the theater, to do some major grocery shopping, pick up a package at the post office that we missed on Saturday, get to a playground.... looks like we're staying inside instead. Jacob is MUCH crabbier than Melinda was with her fever. She was just ever-so-slightly whiny and sleepy. Jacob spent almost entire morning almost throwing a full-blown fit before I finally took him back to bed and he crashed. Hopefully he'll sleep a loooong time, or today might be really hard.

My sunburn stopped hurting, yaaay! Sure makes life easier when you don't have to be super careful about moving just right in order to avoid crazy pain. My elbow and wrist are still bothering me, though. It feels like they really need to pop, or something.

Alex is steadily progressing with his mobility skills. He is now doing baby push-ups, lifting his whole body off the floor a good 5 inches or so, holding himself up by just his hands and tippy-toes. And he is purposefully going after things on the floor, kicking his feet one at a time, with his head firmly planted on the ground, to scoot himself forward. Yesterday one of the kids dropped a piece of popcorn on the floor somewhat near to Alex. You should have seen the look in his eyes. He was working very hard at getting that popcorn so he could stick it in his mouth. He still moves pretty slowly, but he can get around. And the way he's lifting himself up and moving one leg at a time makes us think that he may just be absolutely proficient at scooting and/or crawling in just a matter of weeks.

I'm re-reading the Twilight books (again!), in anticipation of the final installment, Breaking Dawn, which is released this Saturday. No, I'm not going to any midnight parties, and I haven't pre-ordered the book, but if I don't manage to go pick it up from the bookstore on Saturday, you betcha that I'll have it in my hands pretty early next week. And then I have to read it as quickly as possible so I can get into the pack-up-my-apartment mode.

It's now about 3 weeks away from moving day! And true to form, I haven't yet started packing anything. But honestly, I'm not very stressed about it. Jesse's planning on taking 2-3 days off to help pack and clean, and we have 5 days of overlap to move. I hate living with things all boxed up, so I always end up putting it off as long as possible. At any rate, we'll probably start going through closets this weekend, and maybe start thinning out our toys this week.

A "Sweet" Day

On Saturday the 26th, Jesse's company treated everyone to a company outing to Hershey Park in Hershey, Pennsylvania. How fantastic! The company parties in recent years have been wine tastings or other similar events, which automatically excluded us because of our religious beliefs. Needless to say, this year's event was perfect for us - we had a slight bit of schmoozing with co-workers during the catered lunch, but otherwise, it was just our family doing our own thing at an amusement park, courtesy of Jesse's work!

We intended to get there as close to 10am as possible, but we were slow to get going, and only left the house shortly before 10. We thought it was just over a 1-hour drive, but as soon as we got off the interstate to head towards Hershey, we hit a wall of traffic. It took 2 hours in all to get there, bringing us to the park right at about noon. Between parking, using the restrooms, riding the tram, getting through the admission lines, and walking to the other end of the park for the lunch, it was almost 2pm before we had a chance to tackle the rides. There is a water park within Hershey Park, but since the kids and I had gotten sunburns only just Thursday, we had decided ahead of time to skip that portion of it to save ourselves additional pain. It was a good decision - the water area was MUCH too crowded, anyway. We decided instead to focus on kiddie rides. Neither one of us liked the idea of trying to entertain all 3 kids while one adult at a time waited in long lines for the bigger roller coaster type of rides. An added bonus to our plan was that there are generally NO lines for the kiddie rides!

Our first stop was one of the giant slides where you ride down on a potato sack. Jesse took Melinda, then I took Jacob. Jacob had a hard time waiting our turn, but thought the slide was great. I couldn't quite see Melinda's reaction during the slide down, but she said she enjoyed it, too.

We then went over to the next set of kiddie rides, which included this circular ladybug ride, a horse-and-carriage circular ride, and a little tiny train that went around in a large loop. They really liked them, and ran eagerly from one to the next. Right after we took this picture, our camera batteries ran out. D'oh!! I forgot to bring extra. So we spent the next 10-15 minutes walking from one shop to the next looking for someone who sold batteries. Just as we were about to give up and buy a disposable camera, we found some. Hooray!
New batteries in place, we backtracked to this ride, the Musical Express. Melinda was big enough to go on, so I took her. Jesse declined to go on most rides, it's just not his thing, so anytime there was a situation where I couldn't take Melinda and Jacob both, he stayed back with Alex and Jacob. And if I could take them both, he stayed with just Alex. So almost all of the pictures in this post are Jesse's handiwork. Anyway, the Musical Express ride was a lot of fun - my personal favorite of the day! It spins around really fast and the track has elevation changes, so that you feel like you're flying over a bump sometimes. The gravity of the spin made myself and Melinda get squished to the outside of the car, and we both giggled our heads off over those bumps!! I may not have giggled, had I been all on my own, but Melinda was sooo infectious. :) Really, we were both laughing our heads off the whole time!
We went and found more kiddie-exclusive types of rides after that, so Jacob wouldn't feel so bored waiting for us. Every time we past a restroom, we asked the kids if they needed to go. Jacob said "YES!" every time. Melinda said "no" every time. And they were both drinking just as much. Strange kids! Anyway, we found a spot with a couple kiddie rides - a mini carousel and a mini "scrambler", and Jesse took them to each while I sat down on a bench to nurse Alex. I had to grin when a couple other moms also sat down next to me to nurse their children. I don't often run into other moms who are nursing in public, and I don't think I've ever had a stranger sit next to me and join me, before! Alex and another adorable little baby boy had fun grinning at each other after they were finished eating, too!


We also all went on a family-friendly train ride after these kiddie rides. We didn't get any pictures of that. In MY opinion, it was incredibly boring - most of the time the train was actually going slower than a leisurly walk. But later, Melinda said it was her favorite. I have absolutely no idea why, since her reaction was so much better on the bigger rides.


Jacob, Melinda and I stood in line for "The Rodeo", which ended up being a longer wait than I anticipated. Melinda sat in a seat all by herself, and I took Jacob with me, since we could only do 2 people per seat (even though we would have all fit onto one...). It started out just going in a fast circle, but then added a tilt to it, making you go up and down while you were spinning in a circle. Melinda loved it, and Jacob loved it at first.
After the tilting started, Jacob's wide grin quickly changed to a very somber, concerned face, and he huddled against me. I spent the rest of the ride telling him it would be over soon. After the ride was over, he said that this ride was "too hard for me. Yah." So, I didn't take him on any other potentially scary rides the rest of the day.

Melinda and I went on your classic "boat" ride, that just swings you really high, back and forth. Great fun! Melinda, as you can see, was grinning hugely while we were on the ride. As we were going, she said to me, "Mom! This really tickles your belly, huh!" I really loved her description of the feeling in kid-speak, I thought it was so cute, and pretty much right on target!
After this ride, we grabbed some orange Icees (which I *loved*, but Jesse said was too heavy on the syrup) and headed to more kiddie rides. Melinda and Jacob rode on a mini "boat". It was so tame! Nothing more than what you would get from mom or dad pushing you in a swing. Pretty soon the kids were putting their hands in the air to try and liven it up a bit!
Alex was so easy-going, it was surprising! I brought my carrier in case he got fussy, but he was perfectly content to sit in the stroller the whole afternoon, dozing off when he got tired, and otherwise just people-watching.
Jesse was starting to get a headache by this point, and it was after 5pm, so we started walking back towards the front of the park. On our way, we rode the Starship ride. The original plan was for me to take Melinda and then Jesse take Jacob (who was waiting eagerly on the sidelines), but after riding it, I decided that Jacob would not like it. It spun so fast that *I* got too dizzy and didn't feel good. Melinda had a lot of fun pulling the lever to make the starship go up and down, though!
Melinda and Jacob both rode on the neighboring kiddie Hot Air Balloon ride, which, like most of the kiddie rides, basically just went in a circle, but this one had up's and down's as well. It seemed like they enjoyed it!
And our last stop was the BIG carousel. Jesse stayed with Alex once again, but Melinda, Jacob and I all sat on our own horses that moved up and down. I was pretty nervous that Melinda would lean over and fall off, but she did really well! Jesse didn't take any pictures of that one.

On our way out of the park, Jesse's head hurt badly enough that we stopped at a nearby store to grab some Gatorade (his go-to drink when his head hurts after being hot and sweaty, like we all were at Hershey Park!), and he asked me to drive the rest of the way home. Everybody snoozed while I drove. We arrived home at about 7pm and ate some dinner. We did bathtime in preparation for church and then tried to get the kids into bed just before 9pm. I was really hoping they'd go right to sleep. But nope, the car nap did them in - they were still up, running out into the front room, by 10:30pm. Finally Jacob fell asleep, but Melinda took apart her sippy cup and let it leak all over her bed, so she joined us in our room at 11pm. Which, again, is the reason I didn't realize she had a fever when she first woke up. And, by the way, her fever broke late last night, and she woke up feeling perefctly normal. But we're still staying home today, adhering to my mom's old rule of waiting 24 hours to make sure the germs are gone.

Anyway, we had a really fun day, despite the big crowds and Jesse's headache. We avoided getting any additional burns, and the kids loved the rides. Melinda has been asking almost non-stop when we'll go again, and she's not too keen on accepting the fact that the only reason we went was because it was completely free! Well, not completely - it did take an entire half-tank of gas to get there and back, and these days, that's not cheap!

Scripture Sunday (belated)

Our internet stopped working yesterday evening, when I was going to sit down and do Scripture Sunday. We tried resetting the modem several times to no avail, and finally decided there must be an outage, and just gave up. It still wasn't working this morning, but a modem reset worked this time, so here I am, with Scripture Sunday, just a little bit late!

Many years ago, when I was working as a secretary in a legal office, the working environment became very tense for a lot of us. Our company was heavily into the venture capital funding of many internet start-ups, a.k.a. dot com's. Business was just starting to decline when I was hired, but after 2001, it got really bad. Rumors of layoffs went through the office constantly. I survived the first wave, somehow. As a relatively new hire, it surprised me. But as things still looked bleak, another wave of layoffs were going to happen. I became very nervous about my job, and the office manager was, well, most unpleasant as a person, herself. So my work environment during the last several months was very upsetting, and I found myself prone to nearly having nervous breakdowns. In my search for calm, I printed this scripture from 2 Timothy and pasted it to my computer monitor. It helped tremendously.

2 Timothy 1:7
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

I was laid off, but we survived just fine. I felt fairly liberated after leaving the environment that caused me at least some degree of daily fear.

On a completely different vein, the August 2008 issue of the Ensign seemed to have several articles devoted to parenting in the spirit of the gospel. One that I especially enjoyed reading was the article titled Love, Limits and Latitude. It's not available to link to online just yet, but it was filled with many quotes from Prophets throughout our modern history. A few of them include:

Kind looks, kind actions, kind words, and a lovely, holy deportment towards them will bind our children to us with bands that cannot be easily broken; while abuse and unkindness will drive them from us. - Brigham Young

You can only correct your children ... in kindness, by love unfeigned, by persuasion, and reason. - Joseph F. Smith

Take time to be a real friend to your children. - Ezra Taft Benson

Discipline with severity, discipline with cruelty inevitably leads not to correction but to resentment and bitterness.
Children don't need beating, they need love and encouragement. - Gordon B. Hinckley

As I try to improve my parenting, I appreciate the wise words of our modern-day prophets. I appreciate that their words go hand-in-hand with the style of parenting I believe is best, even though I'm far from perfect at parenting that way. As the article points out at its close, "No parent handles every situation perfectly. When we fall short, it is important to apologize and try to do better. After all, parents are growing and learning too." I do try my best to apologize to my children every time I make a recognizable mistake.

If you're wondering what the first part of this blog post has to do with the second half, it's the scripture. For some reason, the scripture kept popping into my mind as I read the article. I've never before thought of that particular scripture with a perspective about the environment I create. But I think it's true - if I am to succeed at parenting with the spirit of the Lord, I need to be absolutely sure that I'm not creating a spirit of fear, but instilling a sense of power, love, and a sound mind within my children. We need to treat our children with the same sort of love and respect that our Heavenly Father treats us with. From the article, "Coercion - physical or psychological - is not appropriate. Coercive behavior includes physical and verbal abuse, threats, shouting, manipulating, withdrawing love, and shaming." We know that our Heavenly Father does not use such methods with us, when we are in need of correcting our lives. He always extends His love and genuine concern for us, and gently leads us in the way we should go.

My ultimate goal in parenting, of course, is to be more like Him. A saying I picked up a year or two from an internet forum went something like, "Christ never said 'Go to your room!', only 'Come unto me.'". It simultaneously makes me chuckle at the absurdity of the image, and nod my head at the sense it makes - my children aren't going to learn any great lessons from sitting alone as a punishment, but they'll learn a lot if I take them, with love, to a quiet spot and talk with them gently, with reasoning and encouragement, empowering them with the tools they need to make good choices.

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

Jealous

Melinda woke up with a fever today. We knew she felt warm when she first got up, but figured it was because she had huddled under a thick blanket all night. Then she complained of a headache as we were getting ready for church - but since she didn't fall asleep till about 11:30pm last night, and we had spent all day in the sun, I brushed it off as too little sleep and not enough water. But when we saw her again halfway through church and she was still sullen looking, and now complained of a headache AND a tummy ache, and still felt warmer than normal, we knew she had a fever. We left church early (much to my regret - apparently the Mosdell's spoke in church today, and I would have *loved* to hear their talks!), and Melinda quickly and easily fell asleep for a few hours.

Long story short, I'm sleepy, and Sundays are always the ideal time to sneak in a nap. And right now, Melinda is on her 3rd nap, and Jacob and Jesse both fell asleep, too. But SOMEONE, who shall remain nameless (oh, fine, and guiltless too) is refusing to fall asleep even though he is acting tired. And of course that means mommy stays awake with him, and not daddy.

It would be so much lovelier for the entire family to be asleep right now, instead of just 3/5ths of it.

Psst, little buddy, go to sleep!! Please??? For mommy?!?

Vacation Recap, Part 2

(Don't forget to click the pictures throughout this post to see a larger version - I kept them small for the most part because of how many there are!)

Alright, when I left off, I had covered pretty much only the drive out to Ohio and the 3 days of the Wilcox family reunion. I'll start off here with Day 4, which was a Sunday. We made plans to drive into Columbus to attend church with my cousin Andrew, who was blessing his first baby that week. Because of that, his parents (Uncle Harold and Aunt Adele) and my Grandma Crockett were also in town. So it was almost like another little family reunion! Andrew gave one of the most original baby blessings I've ever heard, it was really special. Melinda and Jacob got to experience what it's like to visit a different ward (and it sounds like they had fun!), and Jesse and I got to remember what it's like to go to a Gospel Doctrine class. We haven't been to one in over 2 years. Before we started team-teaching in Primary, we were in the Marriage and Family Relationships sunday school class. Which was great, but sometimes we both miss Gospel Doctrine. Andrew happened to be the teacher, and I just have to say that he was a wonderful at it! We both enjoyed sunday school very much.

After church, we went to Andrew and Sarah's house for a little dinner. It was fun to visit with everyone, but it was also brief. Just enough time to play "catch up" with everyone. (And my goodness, it had been about 7 years since I had seen Grandma Crockett, and she didn't look or act a single stitch different! She's really amazing!) Before long, we were heading back to the hotel. And Monday morning, we woke up, got dressed, packed up, and headed down to the lobby to have breakfast with Mom, Dad, Dallis and Kaija. After dragging it out as long as we reasonably could, we said our goodbyes and began the road trip again.

Two hours into our drive, we stopped at Kirtland, Ohio, to see some church historical sites. We stopped at the LDS visitors center long enough to discover that Alex was desperately in need of a diaper change, and let everyone else use the bathroom, and then we walked around the historical downtown. We didn't take the official tour because of the heat and general antsy-ness of the kids, so we didn't see inside the buildings. But we walked around and saw the Newel K. Whitney home and store and other surrounding buildings, and then headed over to the Kirtland Temple. It was the first temple built, completed in 1836, but was abandoned along with the rest of Kirtland when the early members were forced to leave the area. It is now owned and operated by the Community of Christ (formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who believed that only direct descendants of Joseph Smith should be ordained Prophet). We did take the formal tour here, because we did want to see the inside. I was surprised at how different it was from modern-day temples! Still, it was an impressive building, and I feel glad that the Community of Christ has taken such good care of it, giving us the opportunity to see it. So many early members of the church sacrificed so much and worked so hard to build that temple... it's a blessing that it's still standing.

We left Kirtland and continued our drive northeast, eventually arriving at Niagara Falls, NY. Of course, what New York drive wouldn't be complete without toll roads? It baffles me that a state can take a perfectly good interstate highway and turn it into a pay-to-use road as soon as it's within their borders. We got to Niagara Falls around dinner time, and checked into our motel, and then found a Mexican restaurant just down the road to eat at. Hooray! I love, love, love Mexican food!! Of course, it was difficult for the kids to sit through a meal without drawing the attention of every patron in the restaurant, since they had just sat in the van for so long. Thank goodness it was a loud Mexican restaurant, and not a stuffy Italian place, huh? Once it got dark, we headed over to find parking near the Falls and to see them lit up at night. Very beautiful! But it probably would have been nicer to see from the Canadian side, since you can only see the falls from the side, instead of straight on, when you're on the American side.

We got up bright and early in the morning, grabbed some quick breakfast, checked out of the motel, and headed over to Canada. We sat in a relatively short border crossing line for a good 45 minutes. We were practically screaming with frustration. The lines just weren't moving!! Finally a couple extra lines opened up, and we got through. After paying $20 for parking (ugh!!), we walked over towards the sites. As soon as we stepped out of the car, we could see why the Canadian side was better. For one, you could actually feel the mist from the falls, even as far away as we were. Secondly, you could see the entire expanse of the falls, all along the walk. Compared to seeing only the side of one section of the falls from only a couple vantage points, if you're on the American side. We headed towards Journey Behind the Falls, where we donned our yellow plastic ponchos and went into some VERY damp tunnels that came out right under the falls. There were even a couple windows that peeked out to the falls, but all you could see was a wall of white and the very loud roar of the water falling! After re-emerging to the ground above, we bought a souvenir picture (somehow, it was actually a good photo of everyone!), and headed towards the Maid of the Mists. Based on a nice map, we thought it was a nice short walk. It was actually more like a good mile or two, and we were all very glad when we finally reached our destination. We were even more happy when we didn't have to wait to board a boat!! We arrived just as they began boarding. We put on our blue plastic ponchos, and got on the boat. I have to add that I kept getting the funniest reactions from other tourists who saw me carrying Alex in his pouch carrier. When it came time to put on the ponchos, I just ripped a hole through them for Alex's head, so he would be covered, and my torso would still be covered. When I did this before the Maid of the Mists boat, a whole bunch of Japanese guys near me just absolutely burst into laughter. It made me laugh, too. :) We really loved the boat ride - we got absolutely drenched, going right to the base of the horseshoe waterfall. Alex was awake at that point, and kept trying to eat his hands, so I added some armholes into my poncho for him, so he wouldn't be sucking on plastic. The lady next to me thought it was pretty funny!! And he kept grabbing anything he could reach... he was grabbing the lady's hand in front of us at the edge of the boat. Later, he grabbed an old woman's shirt while we were on an elevator... she looked at me as if she were trapped when it was time to get off the elevator and I hadn't realized what he had done! But anyway, the boat ride was great. Lots of fun! I miscalculated where the mist was coming from at one point, though, and Alex got a very sudden face-full of mist. If you can even call it that! It's more like a solid wall of a million tiny water droplets! He instantly started wailing, poor guy. But he recovered quickly, and we all enjoyed the rest of the ride, just grinning and laughing the whole way.



Once we got off the boat, we had to walk all the way back to our car, so it was another ~1 mile walk. Only this time, we were all even more tired. We took a few rests - we had to. Jacob refused to walk (you can see how he got around on Daddy's back most of the time!), Melinda was too tired to walk very long, and my back was getting tired of carrying Alex, too. But we finally made it, and headed back to the United States. I'm so glad we went to Niagara Falls. It's something I've wanted to do ever since we've lived out here on the East Coast, and we finally did it! It really is a must-see destination. The falls are HUGE and so incredible! You really can't imagine how much water is falling over them until you see them in person.




On the way out, we somehow managed to get into a non-moving border crossing line again, much to our extreme frustration. Finally we got through, and since the kids had all fallen asleep during the wait, we decided to drive for about an hour before stopping for lunch. And then, we were really on the road again! We stocked up with drinks and ice to put in our cooler, and headed east.

At about 4pm, we stopped at Palmyra, NY, another church historical site. We briefly visited the the visitors center to get our bearings, and saw the Hill Cumorah from a distance. Unfortunately, we missed the big pageant by about 4 days, but then, we didn't really plan on staying for any length of time, anyway. We took a map and pamphlet and drove a few blocks to find Joseph Smith's childhood home, and toured it with the Sister Missionaries there. It really was incredible how very SMALL their home was, with so many children to fit inside! It hardly seemed possible to have a second story, and yet there it was, and that's where all the children slept. And the living room/kitchen was so small and cramped, it made me feel a little selfish for wanting more space than I have. I have a smaller family and more space than they did! But it really made the whole account of Joseph Smith's childhood come to life for us.

Then we walked as quietly as possible through the Sacred Grove, where Joseph Smith had received his vision. It was gorgeous and peaceful, and I would have loved to stay longer and just enjoy and think about the scene. Unfortunately, young children (at least, our young children) don't have much patience for that sort of thing, so we left after a short while. And got on the road, again. We stopped at a service station to grab some dinner, and the kids were crazy and Jesse was frustrated with them, and when I accidentally set off the car alarm, Jesse got even more frustrated, and got on my case about how he was trying to keep 2 kids from being run over while carrying food, and good grief, why did you do that? Again, it was a complete accident, and I thought it was no big deal, but obviously I was a little frustrated, too, because I actually snapped at him. I yelled at him to stop getting mad at me for what was an honest and harmless accident. Now, Jesse and I don't always get along, sure, but we don't tend to argue and yell with each other. We're the type to just avoid each other until we're ready to talk calmly. I don't think I've ever yelled at Jesse before that. And it seemed really silly to snap at something so trivial. But we both got over it quickly, I'm happy to say, and everything was good once we got back to driving.

We had originally left it up in the air whether we would make one more overnight stop between Niagara Falls and home, but after 5 nights in hotels, we were more than ready to sleep in our own beds and stop living out of our suitcases. So we bit the bullet and decided to drive all the way home that night. Between Palmyra and home is about 6 hours, and it was already 4:30ish when we left, so we had a long evening ahead of us. And unfortunately, Alex didn't quite cooperate as nicely as he had during all the previous driving, and I couldn't take a turn driving, because I had to spend so much time trying to keep him happy. Or at least content. After a gas station stop around 9pm, when I had a chance to change him and nurse him thoroughly, I did try to drive again. It lasted a little while, but before long, Alex was fussing loudly. The sun had set, and we ran into road construction. Suddenly, our GPS was telling us to take exits that were blocked off due to construction all while Alex was screaming his head off, and we all just desperately wanted to find a safe place to pull off the highway and take care of the screaming and get our bearings and figure out where we were going. Oddly enough, this all happened in Scranton, Pennsylvania (home of the television show, "The Office"!). We did eventually find an exit that wasn't blocked off, only after I felt excruciatingly horrible because of how hard Alex was screaming in his car seat, and after much stress and confusion as to where to go to find a safe place to pull over. I took him out of his seat once we stopped, tried to calm him as best as I could, and nurse him some more, hoping that would help, but the rest of the drive home was difficult. I spent a lot of time balanced- not buckled- on top of the cooler in the back next to Alex's seat, trying to keep him calm and entertained. Finally Jacob and Melinda fell asleep, and Alex fell asleep after much effort. Around 11pm. Jesse and I enjoyed the rest of the drive home in peace and quiet, finally getting a chance to listen to some music and just chat. We arrived home just minutes after midnight, and eagerly took the kids out of their seatbelts and headed to bed, bringing in minimal luggage, just wanting to sleep.

Hooray!! Home sweet home. It really was a whirlwind of a last day - From tourism in Canada to home in Maryland, with stops in between, all in one day. PHEW. The good news was that Jesse had the rest of the week off, so we could kick back and relax! We did take the opportunity to go to the National Aquarium in Baltimore on Thursday, which was great! All except for Jacob, who really didn't care to stand in front of the displays and watch the sea life. All he wanted to do was move, move, move... keep walking, no stopping. I didn't take any pictures of it, unfortunately, but was fun to see aquariums full of sting rays, sharks, tropical fish, river fish, ocean fish, frogs, and even jumping dolphins! There was a lot to see, and I'm glad we got to go.

And THAT, folks, concludes our Vacation Recap! I hope you survived at least as well as my typing fingers did. :) And now, I must go and remove a too-small toy from Alex's grasp... he scooted about 3 feet to get to it. He won't be happy, but hopefully he'll forgive me!

Yes, I *would* like some cheese with it.

My whine, that is.

I'm feeling quite caught up in my troubles lately. Starting with the crazy sore muscles from not stretching before our walk. It continues in the dyshidrosis eczema that plagues my finger: nasty little blisters under the skin that itch and burn like crazy, until they reach the surface, pop, and then cause the worst scaly, cracked skin I've ever dealt with. All I have to do is bend my finger at the knuckle, and it will make my fingertip bleed. And if anything, even just plain water, gets into those cracks, it hurts and stings in a very intense way. Keeping it covered with a band aid helps prevent the cracking, but honestly, you know I'd rather not have to deal with it at all. It comes and goes in waves. It was just starting to heal from one wave, to the point where the skin was smooth and pink but hadn't yet recovered its fingerprints, when new blisters formed. And according to doctors, there's no known cause and no known cure, so I get to spend a lot of time playing trial and error to see what helps. Only that process isn't going so well. Also, over the weekend I started having a lot of pain in my right arm. Like, it hurt to reach certain ways or look over my shoulder, and so on. On Friday it *really* got my attention when I looked over my shoulder before changing lanes, and actually yelped in pain and snapped my head back after pain shot down through my shoulder, elbow, all the way to my wrist. It felt the worst on Sunday, and did respond to some ibuprofen (which, if you know me, I only take when I'm feeling pretty desperate), and was starting to get better by Monday on its own. A Tuesday chiropractic adjustment didn't really make much difference, despite there being quite a lot of loud bone popping during the process. As of right now, it mostly feels like a very weak wrist, and I can't put my weight on it, or twist lids or can openers, or snap really difficult snaps. I'm not sure what exactly is wrong, but I do wonder if maybe it's that my elbow or shoulder is out of place, and it's affecting all the bones down the line. On top of all that, the side of my hand (the same one with the eczema and the mysterious bone weakness) is covered in what I can only suppose are bug bites. Maybe flea? There's about 20 of them between the bottom knucle of my pinky finger and the base of my hand. They don't necessarily itch, but they're a bit swollen and painful to the touch. I actually thought they were blisters at first, before I got a good look (it's hard to look at the side of your hand, incidentally). And I have no idea where these bites would have come from. The same night I discovered them, I burned my thumb on the edge of a pot. And then the next day, yesterday, I gave myself a major sunburn. We went swimming, and by the time I had gotten sun block on all three kids, I was more concerned about watching them in the pool so they could be safe than I was concerned about putting sun block on myself. And by the time I noticed my skin feeling a little too hot, it was too late. My shoulders, back and thighs are all bright red and very painful. (Why is it that I rarely burned like this as a child? Was the ozone layer really that much better off 20 years ago??) The good news is that Alex didn't get burned. He was covered in sun block as well as me shielding him from the sun with my own body. The bad news is that we stayed out in the sun for such a long time that Melinda and Jacob's sunblock wore off, and they are both pink enough to be complaining about hurting today. :(

So, yeah. It seems like all I can think about right now is how I'm a burnt lobster who can't use her dominant hand to do much anything useful, not that it would matter because that hand is too covered in eczema and painful bug bites, anyway. And I also feel heavy and tired, and overly grumpy. Which is not made better by the fact that I need to pack and clean my whole house over the next 3 weeks before we move, or that apparently I am the only one who can get Alex to sleep and Jesse is constantly frustrated when I ask him to give it a try because I'm so worn out and sore and etc., etc.

..... There. Maybe whining will help me cheer up. Can't hurt, right? :) It does feel better to at least get it all out. And really, it's not all bad. It's just the physical things that are really getting me down. Unfortunately, physical afflictions have a way of dominating your thoughts, I suppose, simply because they are ever present. The good things? The weather got a bit cooler (enough that I felt too cold last night, what a surprise!!), we've been able to spend time with friends, we got to go on vacation a couple weeks ago, and get to do more fun things this weekend, courtesy of Jesse's work, and we aren't feeling as affected by the economy changes as most people are. We have a lot to be glad for, so don't take my whine for anything more than it is. ;)

bumGenius Diaper Giveaway!

Baby Cheapskate is giving away TWELVE Bum Genius 3.0 cloth diapers!! I had used (and loved) FuzziBunz cloth diapers on Jacob, but I have to say that unfortunately, as much as I loved them, they didn't hold up. The elastic went bad before he had grown out of a single size. The PUL (the lamination that made them leak-proof) deteriorated to the point where you could see that it wasn't going to hold in liquid. And by the time I gave up because he was (well, I thought so at the time) close to potty training, I was regularly changing his pants along with his diapers. But I bought a few bumGenius 3.0's, and I have to tell you, they are obviously more nicely made diapers. I fully believe that they'll hold up as Alex grows bigger. And because they're 1-size, they will fit from infancy through toddlerhood! I was a little skeptical of the 1-size mechanism...I thought it would be too bulky. I was wrong, wrong, wrong!! They're just as trim on the smaller snap settings, and that makes me happy! I'm not a big fan of trying to fit clothes around big bulky diapers.

And no, I'm still not cloth-diapering full time. As much as I'd like to. Personally, I hope that *I* win, because I like these diapers a lot, and I'd be able to go full-time with cloth if I did win, without any extra effort or money spent on my part. BUT, if you've ever thought about cloth diapering, or trying bumGenius, I won't hate you if you enter the contest, too. Because really, I think if more people gave cloth diapering a chance, they'd find out that it's actually pretty fun. And *so* much cuter than disposables! And did I mention the added bonus of not filling up the dumps with piles and piles of throw-away diapers? So if you're interested, head over to enter the contest!

On the Move

This is a video I took this afternoon of Alex scooting around the room. AAAAaaaHHHhhHhhh!! He's scooting!!! And while I thought it was just him wiggling around aimlessly, not one hour later, he was at it again, but *obviously* heading straight for a toy bird in front of him.

Oh boy. Cute as it is, I'm not really ready for him to be moving around the house whenever he pleases!!

Scripture Sunday

Proverbs 20:7
The just man walketh in his integrity: his children are blessed after him.

In the LDS church's Young Women program, there are seven values that girls develop through Personal Progress goals and projects during their teenage years. The seventh is Integrity. The Young Women manual says:

I will have the moral courage to make my actions consistent with my knowledge of right and wrong.

Being a life-long member of the church, I participated in this program. I completed all my goals and projects and earned my Young Womanhood recognition award. I did a pretty good job, I think, at making my actions consistent with my knowledge of right and wrong while I was a Young Woman.

Since becoming a stay-at-home mom, I have to say that my opportunities to practice integrity have been few and far between, relative to the rest of my life. And when you're out of practice with something, sometimes it takes a little bit of work to get it right when you are faced with it again.

A few weeks ago, I got a call from a friend, asking if we'd like an invitation to her daughter's birthday party. Melinda and her daughter are very close in age, and Melinda absolutely adores playing with her. And her family is wonderful, as well. So of course I excitedly said YES! We would love to be invited. We both were attending a dinner party together later that evening, so she told me she would give us the invitation then. In the meantime, I shared the fun news with Melinda - wouldn't it be great to go to her friend's birthday party? How fun!

So when I was given the invitation just as we were leaving to go home after dinner that night, I initially felt nothing but excited. I opened it right there in front of our friend, with Melinda standing next to me eagerly. And as we opened it, our friend explained that the birthday would be on a Sunday. It was the only day she could reserve time at the community pool, and it was a swim party. My heart honestly fell. All my life I had been raised with the ideal that "we don't swim on the Sabbath day". And it's been a standard that we've carried through into my own family. Melinda has asked several times to go swimming on Sunday, and every time, we explain to her that our family doesn't do that, because Heavenly Father asks us to keep the Sabbath Day holy, and that's one of the ways I was raised to do it. Let me clarify that we are nowhere near close to removing all inappropriate activities from our Sabbath day, but this is one of the very few that we're extremely consistent about. Still, Melinda and I had both been looking forward to this invitation very much, and I faltered. I said nothing about the date, just smiled as best as I could, made general comments about how fun it sounded, and so on. And I began an internal argument with myself.

Initially, I talked with Jesse about it. It wouldn't be so bad, after all, would it? We'd still be able to go to church. We'd be spending time with good friends, who also happen to be lovely Christians. We aren't totally against recreational activities - we feel it appropriate to enjoy the outdoors- Heavenly Father's creations- on the Sabbath. We are open to lunches and picnics with friends, sometimes even long walks or hikes. Why not a birthday party, outside, with friends? It was easy to see all the reasons why we should do it. Still, the one (big) reason not to do it kept glaring in my mind. The word turmoil seems appropriate to describe it. I really really wanted to say yes to the invitation. But I also really really didn't want to compromise my family's standards and set a bad example for my children.

In all honesty, I did eventually come to the point of just shrugging my shoulders and deciding that it would be perfectly fine to go. I intended to accept the invitation. It wouldn't be "that bad". But I hadn't yet officially RSVP'd, and the internal argument continued within me. Especially while we were on the road a lot during vacation. There's a lot of time to think while you're driving for 25 cumulative hours! And in the end, I realized what a mistake it would be to attend, despite how innocent it seemed on the surface.

What would it teach my children, if I say over and over and over again, "We don't do x," and then turn around and decide it's okay to do it this time, just because we all want to? As a friend recently reminded me, we teach our children not only by what we say, but also what we do. And we must set a good example for them in order for them to learn what we are trying to teach them. I know that, but I was conveniently forgetting it while I was trying to make this seemingly simple decision. I was taught that you choose the right, no matter how hard it is. And in fact, that's what I teach the children in my Primary class every single Sunday of the year. Choose the Right. (Boy, what a bad teacher I would be if I couldn't even follow the lessons meant for 6-year-olds!) I was given a commandment to keep the Sabbath Day holy. I made covenants when I was baptized, and when I went to the temple. I promised to keep those covenants. It would be a pretty big mistake to do something against my standards with the intention of repenting for it. Making an honest mistake is one thing... intending to make it is a whole different ball game. Ironically, today's lesson compared the feeling we get from making wrong choices to having a pebble in your shoe - you just can't stop thinking about it, it makes you really uncomfortable and unhappy. But when you finally get it out, you feel so much better!

Ultimately, I sent an email to my friend telling her that we wouldn't be attending, and that we were very sorry, and told her exactly why I hadn't said something right off the bat. She was very understanding and told me that she respected our desire to be consistent in our parenting and religious values, and offered a day that week that she could get together with us outside of the party.

And you know what? I felt happy. And after talking about it with Melinda, she agreed that we should stick to our family's rules and standards, even though it would be sad to miss such a fun party. Her only concern was that she wanted to play with her friend. And when I explained that we could make plans to see her on a different day very soon, her face lit up happily. It felt doubly wonderful to see my daughter happy about making a good choice, too.

And so like the above scripture says, children are blessed when their parents walk with integrity. I'm glad for the opportunity I had to remember the things I learned as a child, and to put my integrity back into practice. It was difficult, but rewarding. (And can I just say that I'm a little shocked at how hard it was for me to make this decision?)

I hope that as my children continue to grow, that we will face many more decisions and come out proud of the choices we make together. And I hope they will learn well along side us, and be able to gain their own integrity as adults. Petty as a decision about a birthday party invitation might seem, I think how we dealt with it set us on a postive path for harder choices in our future.

Using the Potty!

Well, it looks like Jacob is definitely on his way to being completely diaper-free!!

This whole week has been good progress on the potty training front. We started the week unable to convince him to wear underwear instead of diapers, and now he's running at the chance to get his underwear himself! We had a few "naked days" in the middle of the week, since he seemed to have accidents with underwear on, but now he's wearing underwear with only a few problems! Yay!

Last night and the night before, he even wore underwear to bed and had no accidents. Thrilling! I was thinking we were still quite a ways from tackling night time potty training, but his own preference proved me wrong in the end.

The only problem we're running into is pooping on the potty. He's always preferred to run back into a closet or a tucked-away corner of a room to poop while standing up. Sitting on the potty for that process is a little odd for him, I guess. He's gotten a little less regular than he has been until now, which made me slightly nervous that he'd end up running into a problem similar to Melinda's (when she would withhold bowel movements for a week at a time). But today and yesterday he started to go in his underwear, and finished on the potty. So, it's progress, and I'm a little less worried.

We're still having accidents here and there, but the vast majority of the time, he's running to the potty on his own, without our prompting, and I think that we won't be turning back to diapers.

And I have to say, I'm thrilled about it. :)

Vacation Recap Part 1

Well, it's about time I finally get around to sitting down and doing a recap of our family vacation. First I was hindered by the business of returning home, unpacking, restocking food, and enjoying the rest of Jesse's time off from work. And then I didn't want to do a post until I had some pictures, and since I forgot to take and use my camera during much of the reunion, I was waiting for my sister to email hers to me. Well, technical difficulties ensued, and I still haven't gotten them, but I *do* have some that were taken by another relative. So here I am, ready to do a write up almost two weeks after the fact!

We left on Thursday the 3rd at about 8am to make the drive to Ohio. Every 3 years, the Wilcox side of the family, descendants of my great-grandparents on my dad's side, get together for a 3-day family reunion. It rotates every 3 years between Washington state, Idaho, and Ohio. This year was Ohio, at my Uncle Don's house. Well actually I don't know how to qualify his exact relation to me. He's techinically my dad's Uncle Don. Anyway, I haven't been to one of these reunions since just after I was married 8 years ago, so it was nice that we had a chance to go and that it was within driving distance for us.

Alex was a great little guy and slept for the first 3.5ish hours of the drive, which was a perfect chance for me to do a chunk of the driving. Jesse slept for part of it, and the kids and I sang along to Laurie Berkner about 3 times in a row. Good times. Of course, we also had about $35 worth of snacks in the car with us, too. Because snacking makes driving happy. Or something like that. We had little entertainment besides snacks and music, and our CD player is old and fickle in the van, so sometimes we didn't even have the music. But the snacks made it an easy trip! The kids didn't fight at all that first day, or even complain, despite being in the car almost 8 hours. Although after about 4 hours, Melinda did start asking how much longer it would take. But she handled it well. We only made a few stops for gas and food, and once at a rest stop to exercise our legs. The couple times that Alex's nursing didn't coincide with those stops, I just unbuckled myself and went back to perform the acrobatic nursing-the-baby-in-the-carseat act.

Once we hit Ohio, we ran into a huge amount of rain. We were hoping it would dissipate by the time we arrived at our destination, but that wasn't the case. The first two days were rainy and muddy and depressing, weather wise. But at least it wasn't pouring the whole time, once we got there. Still, the Uncle Don's large backyard was one giant squishy, slippery, muddy piece of land. I huddled in the paved pavillion as much as humanly possible, being one who has little tolerance for rainy days. But Melinda and Jacob took little notice, and played eagerly anyway.

I have an embarrassing story. When we first pulled up to Uncle Don's house and got out of the van, a young woman approached me. She was wet from playing ultimate frisbee in the drizzle and mud. She said, "Hi!!!" and kept walking towards me. I looked at her and said honestly, "I don't recognize you!!" She sort of giggled and said something like "Oh, that's so funny!" She looked at her wet sweater meaningfully, looked back at me, opened her arms in a gesture of a hug, and asked, "Is it okay??" "Okay..." I said hesitantly. I wasn't sure who I was about to hug, but figured she was family in some form or another, so whatever. We hugged. As she pulled away, and I realized that she wasn't about to divulge her identity, I decided to venture a guess. "Kristen??" I asked, thinking it just might be the grown up version of my little cousin. A shocked look entered the young woman's eyes. "No! Um, Kaija!" WHAT?!?!?! KAIJA?? MY OWN LITTLE SISTER??

That's right. I didn't recognize- truly didn't recognize- my own little sister. Although honestly, you can hardly blame me. I left home when she was about 7 years old, and looked like this picture on the right. Although I'm pretty sure her hair looked more blond in real life. Then, we later counted, I've only seen her since then for a few days at a time on 3 separate occasions in the past 8 years. Not much. A lot of changing happens in that amount of time, right? Well, now Kaija is 16 years old. My other sister, Melissa, when she heard the story (she wasn't at the reunion) said she completely understands. Kaija's looks changed a lot in to Melissa's eyes when they hadn't seen each other in only 6 or 8 months. Last time I saw her before the reunion was when she was 14. A little more grown up than 7 years old, but still not terribly different. And let's not forget that I never get any pictures of my family back at home, either! Anyway, once we started talking more, then I recognized her. I could hear her voice that I knew from over the phone, and finally I could see the facial expressions I remembered. But this is a picture of what she looked like at the reunion. And see, now that I compare the two pictures, she doesn't look incredibly different. But trust me, in person, at first glance, I was completely disoriented and had no idea who she was. Her cheeks were filled out, her eyes more refined, and her hair color looked completely different to my memory. It was so embarrassing. Kaija, I hope you forgive me!! If it makes you feel any better, I had fun hanging out with you at the reunion, and I now have a pretty firm memory of what you look and act like. You've grown up well. :)

Okay, now that the bad story is out of the way....
We had the reunion over three days: Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. It was rainy both Thursday and Friday. And as miserable as that was to me, being in close quarters in order to avoid the weather does allow for some good visiting opportunities. I had fun catching up with my relatives I already knew, and getting to know a few of them that I didn't. And of course, Alex was passed around a lot. Well, not constantly, but when he was awake, at least! (Much to the chagrin of Uncle Eldon, who "accused" me of not passing him around at all! He was just unlucky with his timing, always coming by just after Alex had fallen asleep again...) Otherwise I just carried him around in my sling.

Melinda had a fall the first day that we were there. There was a concrete step just outside the pavillion, and it had gotten quite muddy, and thus, slippery. I nearly fell on it a few times, but Melinda never has been one to be careful about walking and running, and so when her feet hit the step, she landed flat on her bottom. And wailed loudly. Now, I believe she truly did get hurt, because I know *I* would hurt after a similar fall, but Melinda really knows how to wail. In fact, at least one person said to me that it seemed like she was crying most of the reunion. In actuality, she played happily and with little incident the vast majority of the time. But as I replied, the problem isn't that she wasn't happy, it's that it's very obvious when she's unhappy. And there's no consoling her, either. Most of the time when she gets hurt, she won't even let us pick her up or try to give her an ice pack, or kisses, or whatever. All she wants to do is scream. And that sort of reaction really sticks in your head, so I can see how it would seem like she was constantly having one problem or another. But she really did have a good time. And when it was time to start the drive home, she kept asking when we could come back to visit her "cousins" again. So yeah, she had fun.

And Jacob, he had a good time, too. He was one of the only little boys there, and some of the girls (Melinda included) tried to exclude him some of the time, but Jacob recovers easily, unlike Melinda. He was thrilled to have so much yard to freely run around in all weekend. There were two swing sets that all the kids would run back and forth between all day long. And also going inside every now and then to watch a movie. Most of the time, they didn't need any supervision, which was nice. But Jesse was so nice - when they did need following around, or help going to the potty, etc., he took over, and let me just worry about Alex and visiting with relatives most of the time.

While most of the weekend was just visiting, we did have a few specific events: We went out to a field to watch 4th of July fireworks. Melinda really liked that, but Jacob had fallen asleep before we arrived. We played games like bean bag toss and Texas horseshoes. There were a few volleyball games, too, but I avoided those, due to baby + mud + very competitive relatives + many years since the last time I played. Kaija came with us and swam at the hotel pool, which Melinda totally loved. Kaija introduced her to Marco Polo. Melinda can't swim, but she did hang onto the edge of the pool and edge her way around while Kaija looked for her. We had a raffle (didn't win anything), and family pictures (Melinda had a meltdown just as we were trying to sit down, and it's a miracle that someone actually managed to get a shot without her screaming her head off), and marshmallows around the campfire. All in all, it was a nice low-key weekend. And of course, we were thrilled to have sunshine all day long on Saturday!

Oh, right. And I have one more confession to make. I dropped Alex. Oh, I felt terrible! It was not simply an accident, but me just not using my brain. I brought along our Bumbo seat so Alex wouldn't have to be held the whole time if he didn't want to. Well, Friday morning, it seemed like he was in a good mood for sitting, so I got the seat out ... and set it on a picnic bench, of all the stupid places. I put Alex in it, and bent down to pick up the tray that attaches to it. When I bent down, letting go of the chair, it fell down, taking Alex with it. The chair hit the ground (concrete!!!) first, but it didn't keep his skull from hitting the ground, too. I saw it start to fall, and tried my best to catch him, but failed. The thunk of his skull hitting concrete just sickened me. I scooped him up as fast as I could, and he was crying instantly. Oh, I felt just terrible. I *knew* you're only supposed to use them on the ground for that very reason. But I just wasn't thinking. Somehow my head thought a bench would be a better option than the muddy ground. Obviously I didn't think too hard about that. Plastic is easy to wash, after all. Anyway, Alex got a pretty good lump on his head. I didn't worry too much, because the pediatrician told us way back when Melinda got her first goose egg that as long as they cry right away, and they get a big bump almost instantly, they're almost certainly going to be fine and not to worry about a concussion. It's swelling inside the skull and being disoriented enough to not cry that are warning signs to keep an eye out for. At any rate, Alex calmed down relatively easily. Although in all honesty, he's been more cranky since then, especially at night, so I'm thinking I should probably get him to a chiropractor and see if the fall messed up his alignment. Jesse's niece's personality had a similar change after she was in a car accident as a younger child.

Anyway, here's a lot of pictures!

Kaija, Jacob (wearing Grandpa's hat) and Jesse sitting at the table under the pavillion.

Melinda with a small frog she caught in Uncle Don's yard.

Mom (Grandma Wilcox) holding Alex after he fell. If you look close, you can see the goose egg a couple inches above his ear. :(

Dad (Grandpa Wilcox) in a game of bean bag toss. Which is a lot harder than you think, incidentally. It took me almost a whole game before I even managed to *hit* the board, let alone actually get a point.
Martha ("cousin" Chris's wife), carrying Itotia in an Ergo, and pulling Allyson (Melissa's daughter) and Jacob in the wagon. They loved it!!

Melinda with a couple of the "cousins" at the swingset hangout. There was a lot of pouting from just about everyone at one point or another because there just weren't enough swings for everybody to have a turn at once!
Mmmm, my first run-in with "Buckeyes". These little frozen treats are peanut butter heaven wrapped in chocolate! Melts in your mouth!!! I must get a recipe and make some!!!!
My dad trying to cheer up Jacob. Oh boy, did constant playing and lack of naps make for an interesting time with young kids.
A few of the kids hanging out under the tent for a meal. Melinda and Jacob really did enjoy having the constant companionship of kids for 3 days!
Left to Right, top to bottom: Jesse, Jacob, Me, and Alex; my dad Wayne and mom Janet; little brother Dallis, little sister Kaija, (although I shouldn't call them little, everyone is now taller than me...) and a very cranky/miraculously smiling Melinda. Yeah, reamember the meltdown? It was for these pictures. We were just on our way to go back to the hotel and grab a nap, but pictures had to be done first. That was... ... interesting.

My little family. Melinda's laughing (while crying) because Jesse is tickling her in an effort to get a good picture. It kinda worked, huh? Also, the green was totally unplanned.
There is much left to share! Vacation Recap Part 2 will come as soon as I can convince myself to type another book!