Benjamin at four months

I never did write about Benjamin's two-month appointment (probably because it was on August 9th, the day we loaded the moving van, two days before Andrew and the girls left). Turns out the poor boy suffered from ankyloglossia—which sounds like it should be the name of a dinosaur-themed dictionary—which just means that he was tongue-tied. My mom pointed it out one day when he was screaming so I brought it up with the doctor, who, after asking a few questions, snipped his tongue right there and then.

One of the questions was how Benjamin was feeding. The answer was that he was obviously getting milk but he wasn't latching very well. I don't know how we didn't notice it in the NICU with lactation consultants buzzing around the place, but because Benjamin was tongue-tied he clicked when he ate. I'm not even sure he was clicking in the hospital or if it started soon after coming home but it certainly was a bit of a challenge because not only was he a ridiculously noisy eater but clicking tongues cause milk blisters which are kind of annoying to chronically have.

The doctor peeped in Benjamin's mouth, said, "Yup. Definitely tongue-tied," and got out this spoon-type mechanism with a slit in the middle to hold Benjamin's tongue in the right place. Then he just took his scissors out and snipped his lingual frenulum, just like that.

"You'll want to nurse him until it stops bleeding. I'll be back in five minutes to check on you," he said, handing me my squalling son.

Five minutes later and he was just fine, though the clicking would take a few weeks to disappear.

Benjamin also got his vaccinations but they were out of the combined shot so he ended up getting five separate injections. He was not a happy camper, but he survived and we walked out of the office with a cute little card bearing his latest statistics:

Length: 21 inches (0%)
Weight: 8 lbs. 15 oz. (2%)
Head Circumference: 37 cm (3%)

We just had his four month check up today. I am kind of in love with North Carolina's medical system so far. All their records are on the computer so when I called to register the kids at the clinic they already had some of Andrew's information from when he lived here as a boy.

General Conference, day 2

I was so, so happy to have Andrew home on Sunday! He was gone all day on Saturday—came home in the middle of dinner, ate a few bites, changed into his Sunday clothes, and was off for priesthood session. He bought a bag of lifesavers for refreshment throughout the session.

He and his dad have this tradition of eating one lifesaver per talk. Andrew's determined to carry the tradition on—solo—until Benjamin turns twelve and they can do it together.

When we were skyping with my parents, my dad mentioned that he saw Andrew's dad and Jacob at priesthood session. I asked if they were eating lifesavers.

"You mean light sabers, Mom," Rachel corrected me.

We might just call them light sabers forever.

Anyway, Andrew and I made orange rolls together. Andrew started the dough on Saturday night and was a little shocked about the quantities of flour, butter, and yeast he put in. Six cups of flour!? Three tablespoons of yeast?! How much butter?!

"It's a good thing we don't make these very often," I said. "How much butter does the filling call for again?"

"14 tablespoons."

"Wow, that's a lot of butter!"

We put the dough in the fridge to sit overnight and got up in the morning to finish making them. I consulted the recipe for instructions on what to do next and noticed, for the first time, the yield was four dozen rolls!

Happy Thanksgiving

Monday was Canadian Thanksgiving so of course we had to celebrate. Things were a little dicey after school so I was completely frazzled by dinnertime, and thus we had boxed stuffing, instant mashed potatoes, and green beans. If I could have put down the screaming baby for a minute or convinced the other two children to do anything other than pleasing themselves I might have thought to cook up some chicken breasts too. That would have turned this meal into a feast. 

(Note the mouse tail on Miriam; ignore the mess in the background)

Andrew's never home for dinner on Mondays so I don't ever expend much energy on cooking dinner on Mondays. Even if it's Thanksgiving. 

Fairy tails and mirrors

On November 1st, 2011, Rachel informed me that she was going to be Hermione Granger for Halloween the following year. Actually, I think it was November 2nd because on November 1st she told me she was going to be Little Red Riding Hood. So when she told me on November 2nd that she was going to be Hermione Granger, I scoffed. There was no way she was going to still want to be Hermione Granger by Halloween—it was a year away.

Guess who still wants to be Hermione and is totally stoked about it?

Rachel.

She never wavered. Not once.

And she'd better not change her mind before Halloween because I don't have any other plan for her.

What's interesting is Miriam. For a full year, she and Rachel have been planning a pumpkin costume for Miriam. She'd wear the pumpkin hat I made for Rachel back in 2009 and would borrow an orange shirt that Rachel has and we'd just have to come up with orange pants. Perfect plan...except that it was kind of a lame pumpin look—not nearly round enough. Rachel's continued to fill Miriam's head with this plan, though, and so when fall rolled around Miriam was still determined to be a pumpkin. Kind of. So I started brainstorming cheap and easy ways to turn her into a pumpkin but wasn't coming up with anything.

And then one day we were waiting for Rachel at the bus stop and Miriam was twirling around on the grass—showing off the pirouettes and arabesques she's taught herself from watching episodes of Angelina Ballerina (I kid you not; she's a prodigy). Mid twirl she ran up to me and gave my leg a great big hug while she poured out the yearnings of her soul.

"I wish I was Angelina Ballerina!" she sighed dramatically.

"You know, you could be," I offered.

"I could?!" she asked.

She likes folding things...

For months now, Miriam has been balling up her artwork and calling it "folding." She finds it very offensive if anyone suggests that she is "crinkling it up" or "ruining it." It's just folding—she likes folding things. Her words, I believe, were, "It's just yat I like folding fings!" (Yat and fings being that and things, respectively.)

Brilliant sunset one minute, wadded up purple paper the next

House Tour, Part III

So, here's our kitchen—where everything finally has a place (more or less). It's galley-style, so it opens up from our dining room and then pops out by our front door.

Here's the view from the dining area:

Conference, day one

We're coming into midterms here and Andrew is incredibly busy. By extension I am also incredibly busy, pull 12-14 hour shifts of full-time parenting during the day and always on call at night. This week was awfully tiring so I was looking forward to having Andrew home this weekend but, alas, he had a big study group thing and was gone all afternoon. At least we had him home for the morning.

He left shortly after President Monson announced the new ages for missionaries, which was a pretty exciting announcement. He then set up his phone to play conference while he drove to campus (since General Conference isn't on any local radio channels here), leaving me with the girls and the baby and a huge pile of clean laundry to fold.



I saved the laundry specifically for the morning session of General Conference because I can simultaneously listen and fold superbly well.

Relief Society vs. Priesthood

On Thursday night I had Homemaking Family, Home and Personal Enrichment Night a Relief Society activity (I love the simplicity of that, I really do). Andrew was hoping to keep the girls at home and send me to the church by myself but that would mean driving in the dark and, well, I'm still not very fond of driving. I might be the only person in the world who relishes every red light they hit. I'm finally able to let the steering wheel slide through my hands to correct my trajectory after a turn, but it squeaks as it does because my hands are so sweaty from being so nervous. I've driven by myself before but that was during the day and I didn't think I was up for a twenty minute drive, alone, at night.

There's one other Mormon in our neighbourhood so I sent her a message to see if I could just catch a ride with her, but she didn't get back to me in time so I ended up driving to the church...but I made Andrew and the girls come with me so that Andrew could drive home afterwards, or at least coach me while I drove home.

The girls went to the nursery to play with the babysitters. Andrew went into a classroom to read this book he's supposed to have read by tomorrow. I went into the cultural hall with Benjamin.

We had a lovely dinner—Hawaiian haystacks with pumpkin rolls for dessert—and then our first class of the evening was a crock pot cooking class and the instructor had four different dishes for us to try. We were all laughing about that at our table.

My friend Magi said, "My husband's going to be like, 'So, how was your evening? Did you have a good time?' and I'm going to be like, 'Yeah, it was really...fulfilling.'"

Laundry and Lawn Mowing

For the first time in our married lives we have a lawn to mow—granted it's about 50% wild onion, 25% clover, 15% other stuff, and 10% grass, but that's just kind of how it grows out here—and until today Andrew'd been the only one to mow it. He was rather excited to mow it at first, declaring he'd do it Saturday, which I'm sure he fully intended to do.

Two weekendss, ago, however, I was sick so he spent his Saturday painting the shed and watching the kids and he ran out of time to mow the lawn. He'd do it the following weekend, he promised.

Last weekend, Andrew was sick and I was still coughing so neither of us mowed the lawn.

This weekend isn't quite here yet but it's going to be a busy one. Want to know how I know?

It's General Conference weekend—that's a four hour commitment on Saturday (six for Andrew) and four more hours on Sunday; throw in homework and the weekend is pretty much booked—that's how I know. And because I want Andrew to be able to enjoy conference as much as the rest of us, without sacrificing too much of his homework time, I mowed the lawn for him.

After all, when my little brother-in-law had a laundry mishap (he washed a pen with his clothes; bad mistake) and a friend on Facebook quipped, "Good thing you're getting married so you won't have to do laundry ever again!" my mom pointed out that Andrew helps me do laundry all the time so Jacob will likely end up helping Shayla with the laundry, too—because my mother-in-law raises good men. Andrew will start a load (like he did tonight (sometime I think he starts the laundry simply to light a fire under me so that I'll finish it)) or he'll switch it over or help fold. He's even been known to do the whole process from start to finish without me ever lifting a finger.

Happy October!

"I can't believe it's a new year!" Rachel proclaimed excitedly after getting home from school.

Since beginning kindergarten she's been acutely aware of the calendar. She was wondering aloud all weekend what the calendar board was going to look like when she arrived at school on Monday morning. And she was not disappointed—"Even the cafeteria looked different!" she squealed.

"We should start some new year traditions," Rachel suggested at dinner. "Like, Miriam and I can always wear the same shirt on the new year and we can make tuna fish sandwiches for dinner and then maybe we can carve pumpkins. Do people always have pumpkins for the new year?"

I explained the difference between a new month and a new year but it didn't deaden her excitement about the day at all. Mostly she was simply excited about the things she was already doing (like wearing the same shirt as her sister and eating tuna fish sandwiches) but threw in a couple of hopeful ideas (like getting pumpkins) in case I got caught up in her excitement. I didn't.

Instead of carving the pumpkins that we didn't have we went for a walk. It wasn't a big excursion—just up and down our street—but the girls were jumping with joy the whole way. It's a new year month after all. What could be more exciting than that?

I'll tell you—pumpkins have started slowly springing up in our neighbours' yards.

It began a few days ago (Thursday, I think it was). We were loading the kids up in the van when Miriam bailed out of her car seat, jumped out of the van, and began bouncing up and down while screaming for joy: "Yay! Yay! Yay! It's my birthday! I can't believe it—I'm three now!"

Benjamin is not excited about this as his sisters are

She was confused and disappointed when we informed her that it was not, in fact, her birthday.

She pointed to a pile of pumpkins in the yard next door as if they explained everything and said, "But Mom...pumpkins!"

She knows her birthdate; she'll tell people, "My birthday's name is October 25th" (she says the same thing about our house, "My address's name is 36 Buzzing Bee Drive" (disclaimer: not our actual address)) but she doesn't have any concept of time or dates, aside from that her birthday happens when there are pumpkins and on Sundays she gets to wear a pretty dress and go to church.