Organizational skillz

Last night after we had our prayer together Andrew said "amen," but it sounded like he was laughing so I asked him what he was laughing about.

"Nothing," he said, "I just happened to be exhaling while I was talking."

"Really?" I said. "You know, I usually exhale when I talk, too."

"Really!?" exclaimed Andrew. Then about three seconds later he said, "Oh, yeah. I guess you would. Ummm...maybe I was inhaling while I was talking, then."

"You go ahead and try that," I suggested.

So he did. It's possible. It's just hard. And sounds like a...dying person. Not that I've ever talked to a dying person, but I can imagine.

Andrew is very smart but sometimes he puts his foot in his mouth, especially late at night. Though it's possible that he does it more often during the day and I only know about it in the evening because that's when I get to talk to him.

Mysterious Ways

10:35 AM. Yesterday morning. 

Miriam: Up? Mommy's bed? Chapstick?

Me: No. I don't want you to get on Mommy's bed because you'll muck around with stuff you're not supposed to.

Rachel: I can help you get onto Mommy's bed.

Me: No, Rachel—I don't want you to help Miriam get onto Mommy's bed. I don't want her on my bed at all because she'll muck around with all my stuff. Didn't I just say that?

Rachel: Okay. Miriam, you can just get the stool from the bathroom and use that.

Me: Rachel! I don't want her dragging the stool around the house to reach things she's not supposed to reach! Why do you give her these ideas? Miriam, please stay off Mommy's bed, okay?

Miriam: 'Kay.

2:13 PM. Yesterday afternoon.

I was getting ready to go to the temple and I found: a stool by the bed, my pillow on the floor, Chapstick smeared on the sheets, a lidless Chapstick tube, the dust jacket stripped off the book I'm reading, fresh doodles on my notepad, and baby fingerprints all over my extra set of glasses. Grrrrr...

Friends

I've known the first two lines of a poem for a long time now, though I've never quite known where they've come from. They are often unattributed and were even borrowed into a Girl Scout camp song (again, without proper attribution, it seems). You probably know the lines, too.

Make new friends, but keep the old;
Those are silver, these are gold.*

We certainly have fun making new friends, but there's nothing better than getting together with "old" friends. And when you move around a lot it doesn't take long before new friends become old friends.

We've had plenty of opportunities to get together with a some of our "old" family friends this summer. On the 18th of June we got together with the Cummings family and the Perry family.

Bubble [un-]Solution

Yesterday Rachel had her friend Spencer over and she took him outside to play bubbles. Miriam went too.

After a few minutes there was a grand tantrum so I poked my head out the door to investigate. It was Rachel who was screaming.

"AHHHHH! I DIDN'T WANT TO DO THIS! NOW I WILL HAVE NO MORE BUBBLES!"

"What happened?" I asked.

"I spilled some of my bubbles," she sniffed.

"That's alright," I said, "You didn't spill the whole bottle. You can keep playing with what you have left."

The kids started playing again so I went back inside. Moments later more screaming ensued.

"MIRIAM! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME? YOU'RE RUINING MY LIFE!"

I poked my head out the door again.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"MIRIAM SPILLED SOME OF MY BUBBLES!" Rachel raged.

"Just some? Well that means there is still more left. I'm sure it was an accident."

Sampling

Today I found Miriam in the bathroom, sitting on the potty with her pants at her ankles.

I think she's officially potty trained...at least during the daytime. We had a little setback this week and she started having accidents like crazy. On Sunday afternoon between 2:30 and 5:00 PM she wet her pants nine times.

NINE TIMES!

At first I thought she was just having issues adjusting to being back home from camping but when she started saying "ouchie pee-pees" I knew we had a bigger problem on our hands.

Luckily I was able to get an appointment for her on Monday. I had to help her get a urine sample, of course, which is usually pretty tricky when you're only a year old but since Meme's potty trained it was a cinch. Or at least it should have been a cinch.

Gunky Monkey

Miriam has gotten herself into lots of interesting places lately. She's discovered how to climb onto Rachel's bed which means she now has full access to both the radio and the headboard. It's not unusual to suddenly hear music blaring from the girls' bedroom only to walk in and find Miriam jamming out while balancing precariously on the headboard.

Grover Randomness

The night before we left for Grover, Rachel was too excited to sleep. She determined that she'd sleep in the living room with all the camping gear we'd assembled.

Being the mean mom that I am, I said no.

Capitol Gorge (Friday, July 29th)

Even though Rachel whined about not being able to get up because her "eyes just [weren't] working because they just [couldn't] open and so they [couldn't] see anything" and asked that I let her sleep longer, I dragged her out of bed and forced her to go potty.

And thus I didn't have to wash out anything in the shower all day. 

Clearly this was the start of our best day yet!

I helped Rachel get dressed and then directed her to the pavilion to get some breakfast. Along the way she sat down in the sandbox and covered her legs with sand. Then she stood up and said, "There! Now that I'm all dirty I can eat breakfast!"

That's right. We wouldn't want to get too clean now, would we?

Ironically today was probably our "cleanest" day of camping yet. We hiked Capitol Gorge while everyone else hiked Calf Creek. And there was no mud.

Petroglyphs and Sulfur Creek (Thursday, July 28th)

This morning I was the first one awake and I stayed in the tent, waiting for my little people to wake up (more specifically Rachel) so that I could hopefully prevent a bed-wetting accident. Suddenly Rachel sat up in bed and declared, "Oh, no! I wet the bed again!"

She had been sleeping just seconds before.

I found myself, yet again, wishing I had brought a washing machine with me as I scrubbed her pyjamas and bedding, yet again, in the shower.

How ridiculous is that? Rachel hasn't wet the bed in forever! Andrew and I decided that we needed to take preemptive measures and determined that we would wake her up to use the bathroom before we went to bed and that I'd wake her up in the morning before she woke up on her own to use the bathroom again.

We ate breakfast and got ready for the day, fully intending to go hiking. However, we're a little bit slow.

We knew that we wouldn't be joining the rest of our camp on the Sulfur Creek Route (even though that's a lot of fun) but we thought we'd at least be able to hike to Hickman's Bridge or the Pioneer Register. We were wrong, so very wrong.

A picnic in the park was planned for lunch that day and we were carting the picnic (since we weren't doing the Sulfur Creek hike) so we had to be sure we would meet the group coming out of Sulfur Creek in time to feed them before they all died of starvation. Not that that was likely.

We started our day at the petroglyphs and by the time we were finished looking at them it was already past 11:00 and we were supposed to meet in the park at noon. Considering it had taken us nearly 45 minutes to stroll up and down the platform in front of the petroglyphs, we knew then that we wouldn't be able to do a two-mile hike in under an hour, no matter how "easy" or "moderate" it was rated by the rangers.

Goblin Valley and Little Wild Horse Canyon (Wednesday, July 27)

We got up in the morning with the sun, basically. There aren't a whole lot of other options when your tent heats up to a million degrees the minute the sun peeps over the horizon. Miriam had moved to our bed in the middle of the night—she was cold—and she was the first one to wake up. Since she was still dry I hurried and took her out of the tent to go potty. I don't really expect her to stay dry at night yet (and we still put her to bed in diapers) but it's kind of a treat when she does stay dry.

After going potty we went away from the tents to play quietly together.

About half an hour later I heard Rachel crying.

She had wet the bed.

And I forgot to pack the washing machine.

*sigh*

So I washed her pyjamas and bedding in the shower and hung them out to dry. Then we had breakfast and set out to visit Goblin Valley. I have only been to Goblin Valley one other time (7 years ago) and it was approximately a billion degrees (or just 112°F (45°C)) and the rocks were hot enough to melt the flesh off your hand. Needless to say, we didn't do much exploring then.