I say hello

Yesterday we got on Skype to say happy birthday to my beautiful baby sister (who is now 19 years old...so not such a baby anymore) and Benjamin went ballistic. That boy loves Skype. He jumps and squeals and does everything he can to show how delighted he is about the whole thing. He especially adores the little baby boy in the corner who jumps and squeals back at him but enjoys everyone else, too. Yesterday, though, our call with Josie was particularly special because when I prompted Benjamin to "Say 'Hi!' to Auntie Josie!" he waved at her.

He purposefully lifted his arm into the air and gave it a little shake.

It was so sweet! We of course tested it out on every subject we could find after that and it's pretty clear Benjamin understands the concept of waving as a greeting. It's fun to have him getting more and more interactive.

Here's what he sounds like on Skype (and much of the time not on Skype):



Rachel and Miriam both try to imitate him (which is loads more annoying than just having Benjamin do it all day long (which, although cute also gets old)). 

Conference intermission

Between sessions of conference we ran off to Duke Gardens for a little picnic and stroll. It was so beautiful with all the flowers blooming! It was rather crowded, too, which makes sense because it was the perfect day. I loved it! It reminded me of parks in Europe—like The Mall in Washington DC—like a town square of sorts. There were people walking dogs, people napping in the shade, people suntanning, people rolling down hills, people picnicking, people throwing balls—everyone was just out enjoying the day, all together.

We parked by the Asiatic garden this time; we've never been to that part of the garden because we've always walked the other direction. But the Asiatic garden is beautiful!

Andrew wants to go to Antarctica one day (my Auntie Colleen and Uncle LeRon took a trip there at the beginning of the year and Andrew was melting over their photographs) so I told him that I wanted to go to Asia one day.

"I don't care where, really," I said, gazing dreamily at a pagoda in the distance. "Japan...Korea...Thailand. Just...Asia. Y'know?"

"If you don't care where then we've done Asia," he said. "Turkey...Jordan..."

"But that's the Middle East," I said. "I want to see Asia."

"You mean the Far East."

"Precisely."

"We can do that, too."

Or, you know, we can at least go back to wander around in this garden a few more times and dream of being elsewhere. Not that here isn't great. Because it is. But once you've been bit by the travel bug...

Anyway, the gardens were really beautiful! We stopped by this tree before we'd even gotten into the garden because Rachel wanted a picture, with Benjamin (and Miriam but Miriam wouldn't cooperate (and then this morning when she saw the picture asked, "But where am I?")).

Pave Paradise and Pelican's

After our grand adventure at Stagville yesterday we started on our list of errands. Our first stop was Lowe's to pick up a few things for some projects. On our way back to the van Andrew was pushing Miriam in the cart and I was carrying Benjamin and holding Rachel's hand.

"Run Daddy!" Miriam urged. "Go fast!"

Andrew did a few running steps and then jumped on the cart so that he could coast with Miriam to the van. This was a very bad idea (as he soon learned) because the cart completely upended. He quickly jumped off but the cart and tried to stop it but it flipped completely over and landed so it was resting on the handle bars. It had so much momentum that it continued to hurtle through the parking lot, dragging Miriam with it!

I stopped walking and stared with my mouth open.

I don't know how far she was dragged but after what seemed like an eternity the cart came to rest and we all caught up with it, and peeled the cart (Miriam and all) off the pavement.

She somehow managed to keep holding onto the handlebars and was able to keep her face off the ground (thank goodness!). Her knees took the brunt of it, but she's perfectly fine (though she was upset that her pants got muddy (and that her knees hurt)).

Andrew felt so bad and I'll admit that I was a little angry for a few minutes (until I remembered that one time when Rachel was little and I pitched her out of the stroller and into a busy street and then I was all full of forgiveness (even Steven, right?*)) but Andrew made it all better for everyone by suggesting that we stop for snow cones at Pelican's—the neighbourhood snow cone joint.

In Utah there are Snow Cone Shacks or Shave Ice** Stands on every corner, it seems. That's not the case out here. Pelican's is very popular and, it seems, rather unique. They offer over 100 flavours, which was terrible for our indecisive family. The girls ended up choosing flavours based on their favourite colours (so Rachel had green/blue and Miriam had pink).

Here they are waiting for their snow cones (you can see Miriam's none the worse for the wear (and her pants aren't even that dirty)):

Historic Stagville

I'm pretty exhausted once again. Benjamin's got yet another cold and he's teething so he hasn't been sleeping well. We just went went three days in a row without a single nap (and nights haven't been much better either). But it's the "last" day of spring break (now we're just having a regular weekend (except that it's General Conference (so not regular))) and Andrew didn't have class today so we had to do something fun!

After having a horrible attitude yesterday, Rachel behaved perfectly today. She helped do chores this morning and then held her sad little brother while Andrew and I scrambled to get everything ready to go.

Benjamin's 10 months old...and got his first haircut

I'm not sure if it's because time is flying or if it's because Benjamin still isn't crawling, but I really am having a hard time believing he's 10 months old already. But the calendar says it's so; it must be true.

We spent most of the day outside again, though this time I remembered to cover up Benjamin (he got a tad pink yesterday). I even managed to dig out the hat I knew we had somewhere. It was his first time in a hat and he did fairly well. Over and over he pulled it off his head as soon as I put it on him until I sat him down on the grass because then there were better things to pull (ie: the weeds).

Jump Rope

We spent the morning doing chores so that we could put together the jump ropes we got for Easter (these, though I believe ours had free shipping). "Work before play," I told the girls. I was surprised with how well they chipped in. Rachel, specifically, was bustling about doing her work. Miriam also did her work but with a lot more whining and lolly-gagging.

They were both so excited for their jump ropes.

Rachel made a Gryffindor-themed rope using red and yellow beads.

Miriam insisted that they weren't beads at all—they were noodles. Beads, of course, are much shorter than these. Rachel told her that they couldn't be noodles because they're made of plastic, so they must be beads. Miriam screamed, "Noodles!" and stuck her tongue out.

"She stuck her tongue out at me!" Rachel said.

"Girls," I sighed. "Just string your ropes and stop fighting."

They did.

Miriam strung her jump rope grabbing beads at random. She understands patterns but making an entire jump-rope-length pattern was beyond her grasp/patience.

April Fools

It's April already. The year is 1/4 over. Can you believe it? Neither can I.

Today the girls got up and wanted to watch Angelina Ballerina. I let them because, hey—it's spring break! And also, I wanted to sleep. Unfortunately, I couldn't really fall back asleep so I got up and did some laundry and then started getting ready to go to the park.

Sometimes seemingly low-impact activities for children have a huge impact on my role as a mother, like going to the park at lunchtime. Pack lunch, pack bikes, pack baby, pack baby hud, load everything into the car, return to house to print out a map because the GPS won't work... There's so much behind-the-scenes work that mothers do to make simple things happen.

I drove all the way to the park—Little River Regional—by myself. The speed limit on that road is 55 MPH and, in case you were wondering, that's the fastest I've ever driven.

When I showed up at the park my friend Kathleen's eyes got all big and she asked, "Did you drive here all by yourself?! Way to go!"

Kathleen's got one of those personalities I could bask in all day long, exactly the way a cat curls up in the sunshine. She's always pleasant to be around: happy, energetic, and genuine. And she drives on the freeway all by herself. One day I want to be like her.

We had a great time at the park. Rachel knew that her friend Aubrey was going to be there and was thrilled that Grace and Emily and many others were there, too.

My friend Kim brought a bunch of Diet Coke and Mentos for the kids to play with. Her son had gotten a "geyser tube" and wanted to share the joy of a Diet Coke and Mentos Geyser with his friends. We sent the kids off to the field to play with the little "serving size" bottles of coke, trusting the bigger kids to keep an eye on the littler ones, while the moms watched the littlest ones at the playground.

We were talking about book club and how May's book has a few naughty words in it but that we're keeping it as May's book and you can read it or not, when the kids returned, many taking swigs of mint-tainted diet Coke that was leftover from the eruptions.

"You guys aren't drinking that?!" Kim gasped. "Guys—I promise I didn't bring all this Coke planning on giving it to the kids! It's for the experiment. You guys—stop drinking that! I don't know about you but my kids were born caffeinated; they don't need to consume more!"

She seemed torn between explaining to the other moms that she didn't mean to be providing pop for all the kids and getting after the kids to stop drinking.

It was pretty funny. There we were, talking about naughty words in books while the kids were off drinking Coke in the woods. Talk about a risque afternoon. (See? I do sarcasm).

My girls, fortunately, weren't among the Coke drinkers (or they'd probably be up now), though they did enjoy watching the geysers. Kim got all the kids (both those that were "with" us as well as a couple of strangers) together to watch the big two-liter bottle reactions.

Here are the boys setting it up:

Easter 2013

The girls were a little disappointed that the Easter Bunny didn't leave anything this morning. We're sneaky parents, though, and had their baskets all ready to go so after we sent them to get in the car so we could go to church we pulled out the baskets and quickly hid Easter eggs all around the house.

Miriam was the first one inside after church. She had picked a flower and was on a mission to put it in a cup of water as quickly as she could. She walked right past the row of Easter baskets on the bench without even noticing them. They had to be drawn to her attention.

The Resurrection

I gave a talk in sacrament meeting today. I've never been one of those people who can write five or six words on a piece of paper, call it an outline, and then spend the next hour orating. Andrew is, so he doesn't understand why I have to painstakingly type up every single idea I want to say at the pulpit beforehand. I need coherent sentences in front of me because otherwise no coherent sentences come out. I read my talk—though I will admit that I did treat some paragraphs as outlines and tried just speaking, I am much more comfortable reading it word for word—and while I read I fidgeted.

I played with my wedding ring. I crossed one leg behind the other. Then I switched my legs and curled the corner of the paper with my thumb. It was quite possibly the longest fifteen minutes of my life. But it's over!

Non-camping, Part II

On Saturday we took the girls to Wilmington Raleigh to enjoy some beachfront museums. Had the forecast been a little drier and warmer, our plan was to drive to the beach after ballet lessons and enjoy the day there. As it turned out, the forecast was wet and cold so instead we struck off for Raleigh to visit the North Carolina Museum of History.

Our girls both managed to be remarkably cool-headed through all our plan-changing.

Ballet was wonderful and the car ride to Raleigh didn't even feel too long. Rachel read to herself for a while (what did we do before literacy happened?) and she and Rachel played with some fluffy toy chicks they scored at the Sunbeam Egg Hunt.

We had a picnic outside of the capitol building and enjoyed playing around on the grounds outside.

Here are Rachel, Miriam, and Benjamin playing Roll Your Hands together: