I can’t believe Lina is old enough to be baptized! Okay, that’s not true. She’s been ready for years. I can’t believe Mike and I are old enough that Lina has been baptized.
We had a great ceremony for her Saturday. The only hitch was Carter, who threw cheerios, banged the piano keys, escaped after being taken out of the room three separate times by three separate volunteers trying to let me see the ceremony, screamed, kicked and dumped a bottle of water onto the diaper bag during the confirmation, and generally made everyone love him for how dang cute he is. He gets away with everything (not with me—that’s why he loves “volunteers.” Seriously, he pushed me away so that he could go to the primary president, whom I don’t believe he’s ever seen before.)
Lina had to be dunked twice because her foot came up, but that’s kind of an honor, right? We came home and had a fun and hectic lunch with Ron and family, Karen and Eric, Nate, and Gia. An hour later, ten girls showed up at our house for Lina’s birthday party. We were exhausted. The girls had a great time, though, and we got them a movie so that Mike and I could crash afterward.
I was telling Mike today that I used to think we were crazy for having five kids in eight years but then I realized that’s not even the crazy part. It’s having the last four of them in five years. As in, in a few months we will have four children who are five years old or younger. That is why our house is insane. That and the fact that our dishwasher situation is forever cursed.
The old dishwasher (which was an upgrade last year from the old old-one) never clean properly and stopped working one day. I called Samsung and their only suggestion was to turn the washer off and then on again. Um, thanks. So we purchased a new one but it had to be shipped and we’ve been without a dishwasher for a week. Pioneer women had to give birth on the plains and died young and lost their teeth to decay, so I feel pretty dumb for how helpless I am without a washer and, hello, we’ve even been using paper plates. But we don’t own paper bowls and we eat cereal two meals a day (breakfast and dinner). It turns out that I hate shopping slightly more than washing dishes by hand seated on a stool, so I have to wash bowls each day.
Yes, I do all my kitchen chores seated on a stool so that my leg doesn’t hurt. Mike was testing the new video camera out and I got to see all this footage of me scooting around the kitchen for supplies. I’m quite good.
So my favorite things in my life right now are: the weather, a lack of nausea, and being able to breathe through my nose. We had the flu of death in mid-February. I thought we’d already had the flu of death in early February and that we were in the clear, kind of like in 1919 when they called the war, the “Great War.” Yeah, little did they know what was coming. Seriously, we’d been sick and canceled all of our play dates and gym appointments for ten days and the kids and I were starting to finally feel better. So despite a few runny noses and the fact that Carter and Mia had both napped longer than usual one day, I took everyone to my writing group’s annual family-invited dinner, meeting Mike there. Within an hour, I had three kids with a fever. We left early, apologizing. By the time we got home, I had a fever. By like three a.m., Mia’s was up to at least 103, Carter’s was nearly that high, I had chills (can people get an un-fever, like a lower temperature? The thermometer said the temperature under my tongue was 95.2.) Sponge-baths, Tylenol. This continued round-the-clock for seventy-two hours.
Mike would come home from work at seven—he never got it, thank heaven—and all five of his family members would be asleep. Like me on the bed, Carter on the floor in the hallway. Lina and Cora in front of the TV, Mia in the rocking chair. That was the only time anyone slept because at night the fevers would spike again.
There was one night were Mia woke up every twenty minutes for ten hours straight. There was another where we thought she might have had appendicitis because she kept pointing to the right side of her stomach and moaning in sleep-deprived pain. She fell asleep at 5 a.m. and we thought, well, if the pain wakes her up one more time, we’ll take her to the emergency room. She slept for three hours. At eight, I asked, “You were hurting last night. Where were you hurting?” She said, “Yeah, I was hurting so much. My knee, oh, my knee.” She then proceeded to limp for two straight days, all the time. No, every step for days. This was not drama. I swear it was like some kind of hallucination from the fever. She cried and cried from pain and the next day she finally tugged on her ear. So an ear infection? I’m still not sure. I gave her drops. The fever left the next day and then she was fine. Cold-like symptoms for another 14 days, sure, but fine.
Thank heaven Eric prescribed me Ambient like halfway through the three-week long ordeal or I might have killed someone. Can I sleep at night after being woken up seventeen times? No. Can I sleep while driving? Yes, but only if the kids are yelling (back-ground fuzz). Just kidding, I can always get sleepy driving. Oh, you should see me at church. I cannot stay awake in any place that’s quiet. Fortunately, sacrament meeting hasn’t been quiet since Carter had his first birthday, but he goes to nursery now during Sunday School and Relief Society, where I fall asleep. I don’t dare go to the temple. The workers would seriously have to shake me awake. I’d probably slump to the floor or something.
We met Mom and Dad in Las Vegas a few weeks ago and that was such a great vacation. The girls liked staying in a hotel, eating out, swimming, enjoying the weather, watching TV, sleeping in Grandma and Grandpa’s room, and going to the children’s museum. It’s kind of funny that none of the other “attractions” were really on their list of enjoyable activities. The Hoover Dam? Wait, which thing was that again? We tried to do fun stuff but sometimes it was hard to guess. The chocolate factory and the M&M store were a bit disappointing, even for the adults. So thank heaven for the “down time.” They loved it. We got a play date set up for them with Melissa Hunter and the adults all went a casino buffet and then to Cirque de Sole’s “Ka.” It was incredible. Just visually incredible.
Sorry, I know I should go through each child and tell you all their cute, amazing traits but I’ll have to save that for next time. I’m so tired! I’ll throw in some quotes as a peace offering.
Mia : (during prayer) Please bless we can go to a friend’s house. Please bless Heaven Father and Jesus can go to a friend’s house. Please bless Heaven Father can eat with us.”
Mia: (picking at her cheek) I have something on my face.
Me: Why don’t you go wash it?
Mia: No, because I like to eat it. (pops debris into her mouth)
Cora (to Mia, pointing to a booster seat): You gotta shove your little bum down in there!
Mia: Is that poop on my pants? (Sniffs brown spot on jeans.) Huh. Must be fart.
Dad: Mia, did you fart on me?
Mia: Let me check. No, I didn’t.
Oh, I’d like to mention how often my kids talk about farting. Daily. Hourly.
My last kind of funny thing is that I’m trying so hard to finish my book that sometimes I dream about finishing/not finishing. Once I woke up so excited because I’d dreamed I’d worked out a major plot-problem. My dream-solution was to give my gang-banger-villain a chicken leg. Like, not in his hand. Like, his leg would be chicken, not human. Who wouldn’t want to read that book?
