In sickness and in...more sickness

We had another sick day at our house today and are planning on having another one tomorrow. Rachel's cough has gotten progressively worse over the last few days instead of getting better. She also developed a rash today...on her face and arms and legs and back and stomach...but not like fifth's disease...and not like scarlet fever...and not like chicken pox... I don't know what it is.

Miriam's still coughing as well.

And they're both getting fevers off and on.

They were both incredibly grumpy today. Miriam's sad and she doesn't know why but I think it's because she's sick but keeps trying to act like she's not because she's been sick for so long and just wants to be better. The other night she was up crying and I said, "Why are you crying, baby?"

"'Cuz I'm really, really sad," she sniffed.

"And why are you really, really sad?" I asked.

"'Cuz I'm crying," she told me.

Both of them had multiple fits today and although Miriam took a nap Rachel refused to even though she, too, really could have used one.

For lunch we had soup. Rachel wanted tomato soup (as always) and Miriam didn't (as always) so I brought up tomato soup and what my girls like to call "Tangled Hair Soup." Ordinary people might call it Ramen or Oriental Noodles or Ichiban, but those people are boring and unimaginative because clearly it isn't noodles at all but Rapunzel's hair turned into soup. Miriam didn't see the package of Tangled Hair Soup, though, and only noticed the can of tomato soup.

"What?!" she said angrily. "Not do I like tomato soup!"

"I know," I said, flashing the package of noodles, "I also brought some Tangled Hair Soup for you. I'll make them separately."

Miriam looked at me suspiciously.

"What's separate?" she asked.

"It means not together," I told her.

"Oh! Hey, Rachie—Mommy's making separate soup! We're going to have separate soup! She's making it separately!"

Sew much work

Rachel has been making Valentines like crazy. There are seven of them sitting on my desk—little cards that she folded, and then drew skiwampus (but beautiful) hearts and carefully penned the names of her little friends onto. Today we made a special card for Grandma—and our plan was to add it to the pile on my desk, but Rachel was so proud of it (and Grandma was so available) that Rachel delivered it today. 

British Drama

Sometimes family history work can be rather confusing. For example, I am a descendent of Charles Layton. The Layton line is well documented and goes back for generation upon generation—the problem is that Charles, at least biologically speaking, shouldn't hold the surname Layton. His mother, Bathsheba Layton, was an unwed mother—she was engaged to a sailor by the name of William Martin, who disappeared before the birth of the baby. Some sources presume he died at sea while Bathsheba was expecting Charles (1810-1831). Other sources say he lived to be a ripe old age (1810-1884).

It's somewhat of a mystery to me.

I suppose it doesn't really matter if he ran away from his responsibilities or if he died an untimely death. Either way, he wasn't in the picture by the time Charles came along.

Bathsheba later married Nathaniel Denton (sometime in the 1830s, according to my family tree on family search).

Charles, meanwhile, it seems was raised by his uncle Christopher, who was the founder of Layton, Utah.

I'm not clear when his uncle adopted him, but he's known on several records (and in most family stories that I've heard) as his "adopted child." Christopher joined the church and went to America and later Charles joined him—I found one account of his conversion story here although I think I would like to find a more detailed history of his life, if one exists. I frankly don't know.

Charles and Bathsheba were both sealed to Nathaniel Denton, though on family search, this wasn't completed until 1933 (Charles died in 1901—any parental figure he had died before him so this work was obviously done vicariously...and in Cardston, no less...one of Charles' sons, Samuel, immigrated to Canada and settled in Alberta. I descend from Timothy, who stayed in Utah. Irony would have it that my dad later moved to Alberta where we were good friends with the Laytons who descended from Samuel).

On my family tree, it lists Nathaniel Denton as Charles' father. However, if Charles was born of William Martin and raised by Christopher Layton, I fail to see why this should be. But I can't exactly add William Martin as a husband for Bathsheba because they were never married...and I'm not sure at all how to list adopted parents...but Nathaniel Denton was an adoptive father to Charles at any rate.

So I don't know what to do and I'm terrible at finding documents, though I have found Charles' name on the passenger lists of a couple of ships sailing from Liverpool to New Orleans as well as on a few surveys and things. He's relatively easy to find, actually. It's his parents that are more difficult to document—though Nathaniel Denton came to America in 1874 so I kind of presume Bathsheba came then, too... Many of their children stayed behind in England.

Anyway...the long and the short of it is that I have no idea which line to follow. What I really want to know is all the mystery and drama surrounding William Martin.

Perhaps I've been watching too much Downton Abbey...

Rain, rain, go away!

The other night when I went into the girls' room to check on some nighttime problems, I noticed that Rachel's blanket was wet...with droplets of water. She assured me she hadn't wet the bed and I believed her because wetting the bed doesn't usually leave droplets of water on the top of your quilt. Neither of us could think of a good answer, it being the middle of the night and all, so we decided to just ignore it and go back to sleep. Whatever had originally woken Rachel up had been taken care of and the water was a minor wasn't weighing on my mind as much as getting back into bed was.

In the morning, Rachel said, "Mom, I think I know how my blanket got wet last night."

"Oh, really?" I asked.

"Yeah," she said. "It's a pretty easy answer—it's been raining in my room at night."

"You know that it doesn't rain in the house, right?"

"Well, yes, but I have felt it rain in my room at night and come look at this!"

She took me into her bedroom and showed me some condensation on her windows.

"See? It really has been raining in my room. I know it's weird but it's happening."

"That's just condensation," I told her, "Probably from the humidifier."

"It is raining in my room," she insisted. "Just come and stay in my room all night and that way you'll know right when it starts raining. I don't know how it happens but it does!"

A simple...and altogether terrible...solution. I told her I would get to the bottom of it.

So last night before Andrew and I went to bed I went into the girls' room to see if it had started raining yet. The humidifier had already been running for a few hours so I went to feel Rachel's blankets. They were a little wet.

I climbed onto her bed and touched the ceiling. It was also a little wet. Wet enough that little water droplets were forming and dripping onto her.

So it has been raining in her room.

The condensation seems only to gather where the ceiling's already had some moisture damage—along what Rachel used to call the "ghost line" on her ceiling. The girls have been sick and coughing for so long that I think they still need the humidifier in there but we decided we could turn it off before we went to bed instead of having it run until it shuts off automatically (whenever that is). Hopefully that will lessen the frequency of Rachel's nighttime downpours because she refuses to sleep with her door open so the steam just gets trapped in her room...

Sink bath

The last record I have of Miriam having a sink bath was just over two years ago—on January 20th—she was three months old. It was much different than the sink bath she had today!

After dinner Rachel asked if they could have a bath and originally I said no because they should have one on Saturday so they'll be clean for Sunday. And then I realized that today is Saturday (darn it all; I thought it was Friday again) so quickly changed my mind and asked the girls to get ready for a bath. 

Miriam quickly stripped off her clothes and then ran into the kitchen, laughing, "I'm lake-ed!"

I love how she say lake-ed instead of naked.

Grandpa swooped her up and told her she was going to have a shower in the sink. This is a common little game of theirs—he'll dip her head in the sink and sprinkle her with water. She also enjoys asking him for a "sink-rink!" (or "sink-drink," for those of us who can pronounce all our consonant clusters).

Anyway, because she was so fit for a sink shower she ended up having a full on bath in the kitchen sink.

She thought it was both hilarious and enjoyable.

Saturday is a special day

Another weekend's come and gone and we have very little to show for it, though I did spend the morning going through toys and clothes (we ended up ditching two garbage bags full) and Andrew spent three hours working on a single statistics problem (which incidentally ended up being unassigned—bummer...now he still has to do his homework after spending all that time on that tricky problem).

The girls had Emily over to play and got along nicely, for the most part. Grandma got a package in the mail yesterday and gave the girls the box. It was kind of funny, actually.

Grandma regularly donates blood at the Red Cross and she earns points throughout the year for doing so. At the end of the year she can cash her points in for a prize and this year she chose a Red Cross camping chair, which they said would ship in 8–12 weeks. Grandma gave blood on Thursday and yesterday was showing the girls the rectangle the phlebotomist drew on her arm so that he'd remember where to poke her after sterilizing the area and then Grandma said, "I wonder when my camping chairs going to get here..."

And the doorbell rang.

Rachel ran to answer it and there, instead of a person, stood a tall cardboard box.

It was from the Red Cross and inside was a camping chair.

The timing was impecable.

And the girls have really been enjoying that box. They coloured it with Emily today and were all sitting in it so cute so I ran to get the camera but by the time I came back, something tragic had happened and instead of capturing a beautiful moment I captured Rachel screaming, "YOU RUIN EVERYTHING!" at Emily. Fun times...

I think I broke it in my sleep

A couple of nights ago just as we were turning off the light to go to bed, a child called out in their sleep.

"MOM!"

I sucked in some air and held my breath. Neither Andrew nor I moved until we were sure the moaner was really asleep and not actually calling out to me.

"I think they're asleep," Andrew whispered eventually.

"How come whenever they call out it sounds like they're saying mom?" I wondered.

"Because that is what they're saying," Andrew correctly told me.

Sometimes it's hard to have demands be thrown at you all day—and all night—long and sometimes I wish someone else could take a turn. Living in a house with three other adults does allow me more undemanded time than I would get otherwise—for example, the girls are downstairs "helping" Grandma do her morning exercises—but still.

Last night at about four o'clock in the morning I woke up to someone screaming.

"DAD!"

Did they just say...

Snowy days

It's finally started snowing, which is really alright with me because it's also still fairly warm. Walking home from school, though, is now a half hour venture. We have to stop every few feet to fall in the snow or jump in a puddle or pack a snowball or...

Tuesdays and Thursdays

This semester the Tuesday thru Thursday stretch is a little bit taxing. Andrew comes home after dinner but just in time for bedtime on Tuesday. On Wednesdays he's gone before anyone wakes up and comes home after the girls are (hopefully) asleep. On Thursdays he comes home just in time for dinner. If it wasn't for Tuesday and Thursday mornings I'd probably have gone crazy already.

Andrew doesn't have class until noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays this semester so I convinced him that it should be his job to take Rachel to preschool since those are the days he goes. He seemed reluctant at first—parking is difficult unless you get to school super early so he likes to be there by 8:00 everyday so that he can park in the Tanner building parking garage. Otherwise he has to walk a ways.

I totally get this. It's cold outside. 

But, uh, how exactly do I get Rachel to school? I walk her there. In the cold. Yup. 

I'd rather not have to get up and get ready and get Miriam ready and get Rachel ready and leave the house with enough time to walk in the cold to get Rachel to school on time, especially when I'm pregnant. Getting up is getting easier now that I'm out of the first trimester but still...it's cold in the morning! By noon, when I pick her up from school, it's usually warm.

We went to the Lewises' house for FHE a couple of weeks ago (our friends from Egypt who live here now) and I was talking with Sara (no h) about being pregnant because she was also recently pregnant (but sadly ended up with an angel baby—she is my hero in more than one way: she has handled this so well and she's also overall amazing) and she was assuring Andrew that my energy drain was no joke. Then she told a story about how once when Kevan was doing his master's degree he didn't have class until later in the day and she was pregnant so he let her sleep in every morning while he got all the kids up and ready for the day and off to school. 

Andrew hasn't complained about taking Rachel to preschool since that visit.

Rewards of Motherhood

Yesterday morning the girls crawled into bed and cuddled with me, completely ignoring their dad until I pointed out that he might be a little jealous.

"You're the bestest, bestest, bestest mommy ever, ever, ever!" they crooned, stroking my hair and patting my cheeks. I think Rachel said it first and Miriam parroted it.

So far that day I had done nothing to deserve the compliment considering we were all still in bed. Why turn down a compliment though, right?

When I told them they should give some love to their daddy, too, Miriam simply said, "Me jump on you!"

And then she pounced on him.

Tonight I was cuddling Miriam while she was sucking on a cough drop (when she should have been in bed...but she's sick so she wasn't).

"Sweetie Mommy," she said, patting my cheek. "You're the bestest, bestest, bestest mommy ever!"

Sometimes being the mom has it's rewards.

And hearing that is one of them.