Free Bowling Day

August 7th was the last day of National Bowling week and we proudly participated by claiming our free game of bowling. Or…almost free. It was free up to the amount of $6, not including shoe rental and other incidentals.

We went to BYU first because they were in the list of participating alleys but when we got there we saw a sign at the front desk with a picture of the coupon we were holding that had a big X through it. Apparently they didn’t ask to participate. Spoil sports.

So we went to Miracle Bowl, instead, which was surprisingly empty. I was imagining having to wait for a lane to open up but instead we just waltzed right in and got to play right away, which is a very good thing because when you’re bowling with a three-year-old (and the ball takes five minutes to get to the pins after leaving her hands) one game of bowling takes a lot more time than it used to.

It ended up costing us $8—and only Andrew and Rachel had to rent shoes because I have my own. I’m telling you, that’s the most expensive shoe rental I’ve heard of! Still, $8 for three of us to bowl isn’t bad and we had a lot of fun even though we all bowled rather pathetically. Andrew scored a 95. Rachel got an 85. I brought up the rear with a lousy 81. Seriously. I got beaten by a three-year-old using a plastic dinosaur ramp and bumpers. Although I didn’t use the ramp we couldn’t figure out how to turn off the bumpers so Andrew and I used them, too. And still bowled horribly. Oh, well. As I said, we still had fun.

Playground Peek-a-boo

The girls and I spent the entire afternoon at the park. In the past seven days we’ve been to the park about that many times—public spaces are so wonderful, especially when they have clean restrooms and cold drinking fountains on site. Just sayin’.

Today the girls were enamoured with a little tunnel/slide thing.

Sisterly “love”

This video shows about how well my girls get along. Miriam tolerates so much unkindness, both covert and overt, from Rachel. And while it isn’t atypical to find them tangled together in a wrestling pretzel, they do occasionally get along, as well. Miriam finds Rachel hilarious and likes to stroke her hair and face. Rachel loves to dote on Miriam, be the big helper, and sing her lullabies.

I’m sure Rachel will live to rue the day, though, because Miriam isn't always going to be a baby…and as my mom noticed this evening (yes, this is a post0script) Miriam is already eager to get her revenge. When I hold her on my hip it puts her foot on par with Rachel’s head and she takes careful aim and then coyly, slyly, repetitively kicks Rachel in the face. At times this is just reward. Other times it’s just because she can.

A complete transcription follows the clip.

There are no strings on me!

For the past few days Miriam has been experimenting with bipedalism. At first it was unconscious behaviour. She’d take a spoon out of the dishwasher or a toy from the toy box with both hands, stand for a second, and then slowly lower herself to the floor without using her arms for support.

Then a few nights ago Grandpa was playing with her in the basement. He brought her upstairs and proudly announced that she had stood, unsupported, for three whole seconds.

Tonight Daddy was playing with Miriam while I did the dishes and he started yelling for me to come quickly, so I did because usually when he yells like that it means someone is throwing up or bleeding. Instead of being met with a big mess, though, I saw this:

Little Memur-Lemur was balancing solidly on her own two legs, reaching for a pair of binoculars like a kitten batting at a string.

She hasn’t taken any steps yet, gratefully, though she is cruising the furniture, and she still isn’t too interested in walking while holding hands, though her interest in that is growing daily, so I don’t think she’ll be walking like 10 months like Rachel (thank goodness!).

It’s still just funny to see my little baby balancing like that—she’s not tied up to anyone, her arms are free, that’s the only way to go…there are no strings on her!

Apricot everything

Many people seem to have had a bumper crop of apricots this year—our backdoor neighbour’s tree is bowing down under the weight of its fruit and we’ve received a few emails from around the ward inviting us (and anyone else) to come and pick apricots. We don’t have an apricot tree, ourselves. My mom does—but I haven’t noticed if it has a lot of fruit or not this year.

I don’t really pay attention to that sort of thing because I don’t really enjoy apricots.

And tonight’s going to be a good night

The weather has been crazy the past few days. We’re not used to having weather at all so this is a bit of a change. I woke up early on Wednesday morning to a terrific clap of thunder. Shortly thereafter Miriam started crying and she and I spent quite a while snuggling in bed, watching the storm progress through the blinds: thunder, lightning, buckets of rain.

Wednesday evening was absolutely electric. Thunder was booming so powerfully that the windows were rattling and the lightning was nearly constant. I hear that in Salt Lake they got hail the size of marbles. All we got down here was rain, rain, and rain.

Needless to say my girls were feeling a little antsy, what with all the extra energy in the air and being locked up in the house, so this morning when we finally woke up (after being up until the wee hours of the morning with the storm and tearful children) and saw that it was bright and sunny outside we decided to head to the park. It was a little damp, but beautiful.

We didn’t spend a lot of time at the actual park because there was a group of punk kids doing things they ought not and they were making me nervous so we left to play in the field and later made our way to the elementary school.

Miriam was happy to crawl around in the grass while Rachel danced around finding sticks and flowers and going down the slide.

Big Girl

Forget a major breakthrough—it seems as if someone waved the “big-girl” wand over Rachel.

In addition to conquering her playground fears yesterday she also dispensed, used, and properly disposed of her toilet paper after going to the bathroom by herself. That’s the ultimate of potty-trainingness right there. She can do the whole process by herself.

She’s spent the whole day today in the basement playing with the dollhouse. By. Herself.

Major breakthrough

After it stopped raining this evening we went for a walk with my mom, who happens to live very close to a playground. Rachel knows this so while we were walking to Naanii’s house she suggested that we play at the park in at least ten different ways.

That was our first stop after picking up Naanii.

Miriam at nine months

It being the last day of July and having written only seventeen posts, I thought it fitting that I write a little bit more. The truth is that we've been busy--busy unpacking and busy having fun. I also noticed that a lot of the posts this month were about Rachel, so to be fair this one will be dedicated to Miriam because, as we all know, life should be fair, right? Actually, I'd better come right out and say that's a fallacy lest anyone think I actually think that and lest any of my children think that I'm capable of making life "fair." Fair is tricky because it changes based on your station in life, your perception, your gratitude, your attitude, and a whole lot of other factors. So this post isn't really about being fair. It's just about Miriam so we can remember what she was like when she was nine months old.

We'll start with the big news: Miriam started hands-and-knees crawling the day after Sarah's wedding, on July 17th.

Librarian Luau

A few days before Auntie Sarah got married we went to Andrew’s work party, which was also my mom’s work party, and my brother’s work party (but he didn’t come). We joke that the library is a family affair—Andrew’s dad and uncle worked there during their undergrad; I worked there as a student as an actual staff member; my brother David took over my old job after he graduated and I quit to have Rachel, he also worked there as a student; Patrick works there; Emily works there; Andrew worked there while he was an undergrad student and now he’s working there again as a quasi-staffer. As you can see, staggering numbers of people in our family have worked there. It’s just the place to be.