Baby, it's cold outside

A few weeks ago Rachel and I were having breakfast and she asked me, "Mom, is it just going to keep getting coldier and coldier?"

I told her that spring would eventually come.

But recently it does feel like things are just getting "coldier and coldier."

Today when I walked her to school it was 7°F. That's -13°C!

I shouldn't really be complaining about that since my former home (or, if you want to get technical, my former, former, former, former, former home (have I really lived six different places since leaving there?))* of Calgary, is sitting at a chilly -7°F (that's -22°C).

Sometimes all you need is a little perspective. I'd take a positive seven over a negative seven any day, though right now it's 22°F/-5°C in Voronezh and 27°F/-3°C in Moscow (and it's 8:00 at night) so maybe I'd rather be in Russia right now. Cairo sounds like the best option: a yummy 63°F/17°C (at 7:00 PM). Or we could try someplace new. Abraham Bay in the Bahamas? 82°F/27°C. Uppington, South Africa? 93°F/33°C.

Right now I feel like I'd rather be anywhere than here (with the exception, perhaps, of Jukutsk, Russia where it's -47°F/-43°C) but I think that's just my winter depression talking.

For now I guess I'll hole myself up in the office with my heater and get to work. I'm already behind from yesterday and I'm not even sure how much I'll be able to work today. I can hardly keep my eyes open. Miriam slept "all night" on my stomach (all night meaning from 5 AM until 7 AM). Other than that we basically just didn't sleep, at least, between tending to Miriam and tending to Rachel I didn't sleep.

Perhaps where I really want to go is Dreamland.

*Calgary to High River (1) High River to Orem (2) Orem to Russia (3) Russia to Orem (4) Orem to Provo (5) Provo to Orem (6) Orem to Orem (7) Orem to Jordan (8) Jordan to Orem (9) Orem to Egypt (10) Egypt to Orem (11)


So that's eleven moves but only six different cities.

Proper care and feeing of your polar bear/koala/seal/sea lion/child

Our girls have croup. At least I think they have croup because if I didn't know there were children tucked in bed behind their door I might think their room was full of sea lions. They both have that notorious croup cough that sounds like a seal's bark: "Ar, ar, ar!"*

Yesterday we suggested that Andrew take the girls home after sacrament meeting but Rachel really wanted to go to Sunbeams so we scrapped that plan and instead dug up some cough drops for her. We rifled through the medicine cabinet and found some lemon-eucalyptus cough drops. We told her that it was medicine but that it was so good it was going to taste like candy. We may have played it up too much because the minute she popped a drop in her mouth she screwed up her face and announced, "This does not taste like candy."

"Oh, but it's good! It's like a lemon drop!"

"No, it's not. I want to spit it out."

"Oh, but it's got eucalyptus in it! Do you know what animal eats eucalyptus?"

"No...what?"

"A koala! You like koalas—they're so cute and fluffy—and you're eating what they eat. Isn't that cool?"

"No. I want to spit it out. It's a-gusting!"

"It's not disgusting! Koalas love this stuff!"

"It's a-gusting. I want to spit it out."

There were 10 in the...

Rachel hasn't really been a problem at night lately. There was a week or so after Andrew got back to DC where she was coming into bed with us every night but she's been great at staying in her own bed (at least until Daddy leaves for school) for at least a month now. Wednesday was obviously an exception.

The problem sleeper has been Miriam. She's teething and is about as miserable as can be.

She's been working on her eighth tooth for, oh, six weeks now. That means six weeks of drooling, fussing, screaming, and nightly wakings. She's always been a bad teether but to have this much pain and agony over one little tooth was getting to be a bit ridiculous.

And the little one said...

On Wednesday night Rachel climbed in bed with us at 2:00 AM. When I tried waking her up for school the next morning she said, "I am too tired to wake up because I didn't get a good night's sleep. Your bed is too squishy!"

"That is exactly why you have your own bed," I told her, "My bed is not made for three people."

"It was fine after Daddy left," she noted.

She's a silly little thing.

Acrophobe

Miriam has turned into quite the little monkey recently. She can climb onto the toy chest all by herself. The toy chest functions as a bench when the lid is closed but you can pull the back of the bench down to make a desk. When the desk is open she can climb onto the bench part and then onto the desk. She can climb onto the fireplace ledge, the coffee table, and is doing her best to pull herself over the baby gate (though she hasn't managed that quite yet).

To get into the top drawers in the kitchen she pulls out the bottom drawer and climbs inside, which makes her tall enough to reach the top drawer.

The only problem with all the climbing she's been doing lately is that she's terribly acrophobic—even the most dainty degree of altitude makes her tremble with fear. She's too afraid to attempt getting down from anywhere (and I mean anywhere) by herself so instead, when she's ready to disembark, she calls out for me.

Eight-cow Wife

When we were engaged we were dirt poor—well...we had money in the bank (I had money in the bank; Andrew didn't, not much, anyway) but we had big plans with that money (a study abroad to Jordan, for example) so in essence it was already spent, making us dirt poor. Not unlike now, really.

We bought our wedding rings at Wal-Mart. Frugal, I know. We purchased two wedding bands and an engagement ring. It took them forever to get fitted but eventually they came in. Andrew picked them up and tried to surprise me only he had forgotten to think of a plan of how to surprise me beforehand so ended scrambling in the car for props when he pulled up to my house. He quickly found a Hershey's kiss in the car, unwrapped it, nibbled off a bit of chocolate around the bottom, replaced the nibbled-off chocolate with my ring, and rewrapped it.

Park

I spent the last month gathering up junk from around our house. A sweater I haven't worn since grade eleven. A few stuffed animals no one seems to play with (or know of their origin). An Anne Geddes print my gymnastics coach gave me for Christmas ten (or more) years ago. A pair of boots my little sister gave to me when she grew out of them five years ago. A pair of cords that just don't seem to fit my post-pregnant body like they did my pre-pregnant one. That kind of thing.

I even made Andrew help me go through our bookshelves to winnow down our collection. I meant to do this earlier when my sister was collecting books for a group of underprivileged girls in New York (I think) but I never got around to doing it. We found about 25 books that we felt we could part with—though most of them were college-level textbooks we hadn't been able to sell back and I'm not so sure teen girls from New York would appreciate outdated college textbooks for their liesure reading. Just a hunch.

Primary

I have been in primary a long time. This year we're teaching the nine-year-olds and, let me tell you, teaching four nine-year-olds is a heck of a lot nicer than teacher nine four-year-olds. And I don't even usually say "heck" so that says a lot right there.

I think I've been back in primary since I was 19 (with a few breaks (our summer in Jordan...and that might be just about it)). I'm now 25. That's six years of primary, and the funny thing is that if I had been a Sunbeam when I started I would be in the nine-year-old class now, which is where I am. Maybe in three more years I can graduate from primary. We'll see.

Senior primary, though, is awesome. We walked into class with some ground rules but we didn't even really need to because the kids listed off the rules before we even told them what they were. It's like they've already spent several years being formally educated or something. They all sat down in their chairs the whole time, raised their hands before giving answers, and when they asked if we brought treats and I told them, "Treats are for babies; if you want a treat you can go back to nursery," no one cried.

I think I like nine-year-olds.

Sure, they had their annoying moments but it was nothing compared to herding four-year-olds all day.

Pretend Play—at the library

Yesterday I neglected Rachel and Miriam while I read Hunger Games, the entire thing. I can't even remember the last time I've been able to read a book in a day. In large part I'd like to thank my husband and in-laws for watching my children/allowing them to run around rampant while I did so.

For a good hour the girls played library while I read. They used the toy stroller Miriam got for Christmas from Aunt Katharine as a book cart and would wheel it into their bedroom, load it up with books, and then climb up on the toy chest/desk to read them. When they were finished they would go and get a new load of books and read those, too. 

Happy 2011!

It's the New Year, obviously. Today in church the opening hymn was Ring Out, Wild Bells and if that isn't a clear sign it's a new year I don't know what is. The lyrics aren't half bad but the melody is really quite a dirge. I realize the song talks about the year dying, but it also talks a lot about "happy bells across the snow," and "ring out the false, ring in the new," and "ring in the Christ that is to be." Shouldn't that mean the song is a little happier than a funeral march? Sorry, Crawford Gates, I suppose I just don't understand what you were going for, though we were grateful the song took so long to sing because, due to a mechanical error (the alarm on the iPod didn't go off) and to a baby who was up all night screaming (Miriam), we didn't wake up until 8:10 this morning so it was rush, rush, rush until we walked into the chapel during the final strains of the first verse of your song. 

If it had been any other song we would have been more notably late, I'm positive. It worked out well enough and we still got to sing for what seemed like five years before the opening prayer.

To ring in the New Year we went to a "friend's" dance party. I say "friend" because, frankly, I don't think I know the guy, but he worked for my mom when he went to BYU and now he lives up in Canada and he knows my cousin Beth.