Because it's fun to do pointless things on the internet!

I have dragon eggs. Please love them. (clicking the eggs will help them hatch, you see.)









Maybe I will see if I can adopt more. ... I wonder what will happen when they hatch. I will update. :)

Milestone?

more cat pictures

My children have discovered potty humor. I kind of regret letting them watch Nanny McPhee. Awesome movie, but unfortunately they really enjoyed some of the kids-being-naughty parts. Being preschoolers, of course THAT'S what they would remember. *sigh* I hear Poppet saying "poop bum" rather more often than I'd like, and laughing riotously over the baby "tooting in her diaper." (It sounds like "toot" -- imagine a rather musical rendition of the word that makes one thing more of musical instruments than bodily functions, but there you go.)

I guess I'll just need to put up with this for the next.... 15 years? How much longer will I be having kids, I wonder?

Plus also (I totally go that from you, Bex) if you haven't become a frequenter of the site I got that picture from.... you should. Boy and how does it give me my belly-laugh exercise on a semi-regular basis. I get my jollies from the LOLcats, I do. Always worth a chortle or so. Probably even if you hate cats. (You can imagine what must have been done to them to get some of those awesome expressions. Or you can just enjoy the captions, like me.) There are some inside jokes, but you catch on quick... unless you're obsessive like me and spend several days going through all the old ones til the very beginning. ... Did I just admit to that in front of... oh, well, there's only, like, 12 people who read my blog anyway, so I guess it's okay. *GRIIIIN*

.... It's officially late. I'm going to bed. And my parents are flying out for a visit tomorrow! YAY! (Blue Eyes sounds like he thinks they're coming out to see and play with HIM. *chuckle*)

Father's Daughter

They say be careful because the girl you marry will grow up to be just like her mother.... Well, I like to think I'm just like my mom SOMEWHERE, but really, I'm turning into my father instead. I do tease my dad about it. For example, I spill things on my shirt when I'm eating, and say, "Man, I am so my father's daughter!" (Actually, this happened Sunday night, and inspired this post.) I also rough-house and get extra cuddly with my children, and think, "I'm just like my dad." Dad, you'll love this one: I've even started telling my kids it's time for bed, at, like, 6 pm. (Them, not me, of course, but sometimes me, too!)

But I hope I'm learning some of my father's sense of duty. I hope I'm learning even a fraction of his generosity. If I had even half his generosity, I'd still be one of the most generous people I know. Dad gets the number one spot, hands down. I hope I've inherited some of his positive outlook -- I want to be able to tell my children the same things about the potential I see in them as he's always told me. I think I got some of his intelligence, and it's done well for me. I got his love for football (after I sat next to him and had him explain the rules to me.) He taught me how to put together furniture from a box (and love every minute of it.) He taught me, with tears in his eyes, to love the gospel because life was a dark place without it. He's taught me what patience and long-suffering look like, because he's been so patient and long-suffering with me and my parental abuse. *wry smile* And he's shown me what it means to listen to the Spirit and try to fulfill your responsibility as a parent. He gave me the best advice I've ever gotten, and I met my husband because I followed his counsel.

It's not Father's Day anymore, but I was thinking of you, Dad. Maybe it's because it's almost the Fourth of July and you also taught me your patriotism, and gave me my love for our flag. I was thinking of you even before you gave me a call today. Love you, Dad. You're one of the best men I know, and it's a compliment to my husband to tell him he's a lot like you sometimes. (I wish I had a picture of the two of us when I was little -- that one of you with your head on a rolled-up sleeping bag and me on your tummy. That's how I feel right now. I still feel like a little girl when I think of you, and miss your awesome hugs.)

Now I'm all weepy. Gotta get a tissue.

Incredible

My family is sick. Blue Eyes has caught what Poppet has, and he is Crabby. Peiwen is starting to get a sore throat, poor guy. I still feel okay, so I have decided to get off my behind and actually do some of the things that need so desperately to be done and have been really bothering me. Like dishes. And cleaning the floor. The red rug will be impressive when I'm done, and if I weren't so embarrassed about it's current condition, I'd take before and after pictures. Instead I'll just try to document cleaning it after I've got it vacuumed and off the floor.

Blue Eyes has requested to watch The Incredibles. Good background for my heroic planned day. My kids tell me I'm Mrs. Incredible -- they like to assign roles, and so Poppet is Violet, Blue Eyes is Dash, Little Hungry is Jack Jack, Peiwen is Mr. Incredible, and instead of Helen or Elastigirl, I'm always Mrs. Incredible. I just smile and say thank you. In my head, Mrs. Incredible is not a character. It's a state of being. It makes me want to try to be Incredible.

He was early. Everything else has been late.

Shame on me for not posting before now, but I've been enjoying New Baby Bliss and haven't been on the computer much. It all started with a routine Fetal Non-Stress test....

May 5th was going to be an exciting day. I had my bi-weekly non-stress test at the hospital in the morning (for polyhydramnios and variations in the baby's heart rate during previous tests) and after that I'd be seeing my midwife and she'd check to see if we'd be able to induce the next week or if we'd have to wait longer. Well, that visit never happened. At my non-stress test there were more variations -- the baby's heart rate dropped with every contraction, more than once in a contraction. The specialist was consulted, and recommended I go immediately to the hospital I'd be delivering at to be induced (two weeks early.)

Being completely and absolutely unprepared, there was quite a bit of juggling to be done last minute. Fortunately my sister was heaven sent and watched my other children while I headed to the hospital. I called Darcy. He was working at a client's office 45 minutes or so north, but he could leave right away to meet me at the hospital. I got to the hospital at around 11 am, met with my midwife not long after to discuss the situation -- we'd take the specialists advice and get started, and got stabbed for my IV.

I'll skip the details. Suffice it to say that everything went smoothly, and at 7:28 that night our newest son joined the world, healthy, whole, although rather purple and slimy at first. (There was so much vernix. My other two babies were late, and much of the vernix had already absorbed into their skin.)

Little Hungry is beautiful. I think he'll have brown eyes. Even at two weeks early, he was 9 lbs, 8 oz, and 22 inches long. We're all glad he was early. Blue Eyes was three days late and he was 9 lbs, 5 oz (and 22 inches long.)

After a crazy week (where I spent all 48 hours after birth in the hospital being pampered -- it was kind of hard to leave) with Darcy taking much time off work to take care of everything, my mom arrived. She left this past Tuesday, having taken care of cooking (or buying something that didn't really require cooking) laundry, and dishes, and chasing small children for two weeks. I really appreciated it, of course, but you always appreciate that sort of thing MORE when it's gone.

Life is now settling into the new normal with Darcy going to work each day and I staying home with our three children. ... Eventually I'll get used to it. .... Eventually I'll be able to do more with my day than nurse, hold my baby, make lunch, and put Blue Eyes down for a nap. I look forward to Little Hungry getting on more of a schedule. He's still doing the newborn erratic unpredictable thing. (gosh darn if he isn't so cute, though.)

Little Hungry (who will hopefully get a better nickname in the near future) is the sweetest baby. He hardly ever cries, and then only briefly, as if to get my attention that he needs something. He's so sweet while he's awake, looking curiously around as best he can. He has the most mobile little face -- makes the most wonderful expressions. Darcy commented that babies are a little more interesting when they can move and play and talk and stuff. I agreed. Newborns are for mothers, I said. They sleep, and nurse, and cuddle, and love and need you, and that's about it. (They don't talk back, they don't climb on you and hurt you, or break your pretty things, or DRAW on your PILLOWCASES -- that's a story for another day -- or tell you they're going to shoot you and get a new mommy -- yes, my daughter said this today when I made her lie down for quiet time. Where did she learn that sort of thing??? -- they're just sweet.)

Every day I watch my newborn grow, and it makes me a little sad. I try to remember to treasure each moment as much as I can because I know how much I'll miss this time when it's gone. Anyway, welcome to the world, my boy. As beautiful and fascinating as it is, it's much more wonderful with you in it.

My daughter is an empiricist.

I've noticed an interesting habit my daughter has of refusing to believe me if I correct her pronunciation. For example, on a show she was watching they talked about telescopes. Poppet heard "tele-spoke" and will not, for love or money, believe me when I tell her that's not right. Apparently she only believes the evidence of her own ears. Well.... no history-changing scientific breakthroughs for her, I think! (I learned in one of my philosophy classes that people like Galileo and Newton were actually NOT empirical at all, like some people like to believe, and that if you think about it, none of their assumptions made sense based on observation and conventional wisdom. They were all leaps of logic. Shame on me for already forgetting the term that's the opposite of "empiricist."

As brilliant as my children are, they have not yet developed any kind of understanding of logic. For me this means rather frustrating conversations on a daily basis. My daughter's argument style is to simply say "because (restatement of position here)." My son is more straightforward, and therefore easier to deal with. He doesn't attempt to use any sort of logic syntax and goes straight for "no I don't want to!" I like their concept (or lack thereof) of cause and effect, too. They seem to be the same thing.

Me: Why did you do that??
Child: Because I did it.
Me: But why???
Child: Because that's what I did. ??

Tonight, while I was tucking him into bed, Blue Eyes reminded me that someday he will be a daddy and have the priesthood, and it got me thinking. Yes, someday he will be taller than me, and independent, and no way would he let me tuck him into bed. (Obviously, this made me rather melacholy.) I told him I'm excited to see him grown up because I know he'll make a really good daddy someday (to which he laughed the most delightful "mommy complimented me" kind of laugh *heartthrob*) but that when he's all grown up I'll miss him being little like he is now. Then he snuggled up to me in the most endearing way. This is what makes all those mess-cleaning, disobedience-punishing, "I-don't-like-you-mommy-leave-me-alone" days worth the price.

So what gets you through when they're teenagers??

The Dreadful Blank Page

This post is the equivalent of the phrase "testing, testing." There will be no content. Nothing to interest. It is a cypher. A place-holder. A note with no meaning.

But I'll write more tomorrow. :)