DST has us all like...

Why do we do this to ourselves? We've been willingly walking into jetlag for decades...and to what end? I suppose one nice thing about it is that my children can play outside until it gets dark but we still get to eat dinner at a decent time once they're driven indoors...

Alexander was rather thrown off by things. He woke up at his usual time on Sunday morning, which meant he woke up early for the new time, and then he fell asleep halfway through sacrament meeting and didn't wake up until halfway through Sunday school. Once he was well-cuddled, we went to nursery where I sat him in a chair and walked out of the room. And—miraculously—he didn't start crying immediately. Rather he participated (silently) before getting weepy (but not unconsolably so).

He was only in there for about twenty minutes and his leaders did end up bringing him to me just a few minutes before church let out, but all in all he did a fabulous job. And he was so excited for his little handouts. His teacher makes great handouts that he plays with all week long.

Last week they got a little paper suitcase with a picture of someone praying, a picture of someone reading scriptures, and a picture of someone being baptized. This week they got a little bag with different books of scripture to put inside as well as a little sunshine on a stick.

His leader sure loves her Cricut (and he sure loves that she loves it)!

We talked a lot about how we found each other, just like Llama Llama and his mama (because mamas come back for their babies). Hopefully next week will run a little smoother than this week did and Alexander will be a little bit braver because, as I mentioned, he was a little thrown off by this new schedule that's been dictated to us.

He was so out of sorts at bedtime—so beyond ready for bed—that he bit me!


I was lying on the floor reading Little House (technically we're on These Happy Golden Years and I just can't even with that song because I get to extrapolating dates and it blows my mind how close our kids are to being grown up, even as we're still right in the middle of diapers and preschool, yes) to Benjamin, who was in his bed listening, and Zoë, who was sitting on my back, brushing my hair.

Alexander was playing around and then he just...sunk his teeth into my calf.

Well, if I didn't just start squealing like a stuck pig!

I'm just now realizing that in this instance the pig is probably just stuck somewhere, as in cornered or otherwise entangled. For some reason I've always imagined a pig, like, getting a flu shot or being poked with a pitch fork or something and I'm just now understanding that that is not the scenario this saying refers to. The pig is just...trapped...as was I!

I didn't want to kick my legs too hard because I didn't want to hurt Alexander (or accidentally knock him down the stairs or something), so I was trying to communicate to Zoë to get off of my back, but I couldn't just say that because I was too busy screaming about the set of teeth in my leg. So I tried to buck her off but instead of just getting off she wrapped her arms around my neck and held on like she was some kind of rodeo star.

So, there I was, flailing around on the ground, swatting blindly at my children—trying to keep one from strangling me and the other from taking off a chunk of my flesh—while screaming who even knows what. Nothing that made sense, apparently.

"Alexander! Stop! Ow! Zoë! Just! UGH! Get! Baby! Off! Ow! Guys!"

Finally Andrew appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

"What is even going on up there?" he asked and both kids kind of went into neutral mode. They just slid off of me, putting on the appearance of being perfectly well-behaved children.

"Alexander bit me," I sniffed sheepishly, wiping away my tears. "And I couldn't get him off because Zoë was sitting on me."

(WHO IS IN CONTROL HERE?! Uhhh, me.)

I haven't been bit for a long time. Though my children have bitten each other periodically through the years, I haven't been bitten by one of them in a long time.

This...doesn't make them sound like very tame children. But, you know...it is what it is (and it's usually just the current toddler biting the older kids (although Zoë has bitten Alexander a few times in recent history as well)).

Never again will I tell the person who received the bite to just walk it off because—I'll tell you what—all that screaming I did about it was completely justified! It hurt like the dickens!

Rachel had gone to bed early last night (she hadn't been feeling well yesterday) so she missed all the racket. I told her about it when she got home from school for some reason; I don't remember why. Probably along the lines of this:

"How were the kids today?" Rachel might have asked (because she is thoughtful and always asks this and if I say that it was actually a rather difficult day she's usually pretty good about being extra helpful, taking the wee ones off to play something so that I can breathe for a minute).

"They were really pretty good," I might have said (because they were good today (until bedtime—what is with bedtime lately?!)). And then perhaps I said, "Unlike last night..."

That sounds like a lead-in I'd use for a good story.

"What happened last night?" Rachel may have asked.

And then I would have said, "Alexander bit me!"

"Where?" she asked (this part I remember).

"Oh, on my leg. I can't even remember which one. I doubt it even left a..." I pulled up my pant leg to reveal a lovely set of toddler teeth marks, set in purple, on my calf. "...mark. Never mind. There it is. He bit me right there."

We're looking forward to baby getting over his jetlag....