Peter Pan 2013

Phew! Peter Pan is finished!

The end of a show always elicits such mixed emotions from me. On the one hand—huzzah for no more rehearsals, no more late nights, no more panic about fundraising or being late or running tights. On the other hand—no more thrill, no more anticipation, no more friendship-forming/costume-building pow-wows in the lobby. I'm sure the girls will continue to play Peter Pan and Flower Fairies for some time to come. Just this morning they turned their bunk bed into a theatre and dangled stuffed animals from the top bunk after tying ribbons to their limbs. The stuffed animals were "doing aerial dancing!" It was pretty cute.

Anyway, here are a few pictures from the dress rehearsal on Thursday night.

Dress Rehearsal

Last night the girls had a dress rehearsal at the Carolina Theater, which they were very excited for. The strangest part was that we just dropped them off and then had nothing to do. It was the weirdest feeling because the past few months have been such a frenzy of costume-making. We'd walk into the theater and be bombarded with yarn and fabric and scissors and glue. Even just on Thursday night we were all slaving away, trying to finish the Nana costume.

But last night we just dropped them off. We were instructed to be back to pick them up by 7:30, when hopefully they'd be finished. So we left.

We stood outside on the sidewalk puzzling over what to do with two hours free from children (except Benjamin, who was strapped to me...like always).

"We could go on a date," I suggested.

"I'm hungry," Andrew said. "Let's go out for dinner."

"Where should we go?" I asked.

We stood on the sidewalk and puzzled over that some more. The theater is right downtown. There are dozens of upscale (when compared to McDonald's) restaurants to try but we didn't even know where to begin, nor how much we wanted to spend. We don't have an eating-out category in our budget because we don't usually do it. After walking around downtown hand in hand (because we weren't wrangling children) and surveying a few menus, we settled on around $20 and found a cute pizza place called Pop's Trattoria. We're suckers for Italian food (especially Andrew).

They open at 5:30 and we arrived at 5:40, walked right in, and asked for a table for two.

"Do you have reservations?" the hostess asked.

"Do we need one?" Andrew asked.

"No," she said, looking through her book. "Do you want a window seat or would you rather sit in the dining room."

We opted for a window seat, even though the tables were abnormally high for dining.

"It's okay," the hostess assured us. "I can just stack a couple of high chairs for him to sit on. You can pick any table you'd like!"

We found our table and sat down to look at the menus. Their wood oven-fired pizzas are $10 a piece so we thought we'd each get one. That's how we survived our honeymoon—we'd find the cheapest pizza joint we could and then we'd each order a margherita pizza since that's typically the cheapest thing on the menu. It's somewhat normal to eat a whole pizza in Italy, according to Andrew (and my observations). Andrew asked the waiter for two pizzas, but then I went and asked how big the pizzas were.

"They're pretty big," he said. "There's no way each of you are going to eat a whole one. But half of one might not be quite enough. I'd recommend getting a pizza to split and then a salad or something as well."

So that's what we did. And it was good, though I'm pretty positive we each could have eaten a whole pizza.

We had bread while we waited, which was good. They gave us a dish of olive oil...but no vinegar. Sad day. Andrew still did a lot of dipping, but I didn't.

We also had a nice view of the bar but only realized that we were sitting in the bar when one of the owners/managers stopped by to ask Benjamin how he was enjoying sitting at the bar.

This week

Just as I suspected, this week is being gobbled up with ballet, but we've done some other things, too. On Sunday, for example, Miriam did my hair (after church).

Here's the front:

And here's the back:

In which I talk about a lot of random things

In yesterday's crazy storm, a friend's house got struck by lightning—or, as Miriam would call it, flashling. This is the second family I've known of to have this happen to them right here in North Carolina. I don't think I know of anyone else whose house has been struck by lightning (unless that's how the fire in the King's apartment building started when we lived in Burnaby. I can't remember, but if it is then that would bring my total up to three).

Andrew and I were talking about this last night and I said, "How does that work? I mean, how many houses do you know around here that are taller than the trees in the yard?"

"I know, right?" he said. "It doesn't make sense for the house to get hit if there are taller things around."

We both looked at each other and instantly knew the truth: we'd been had. 

It turns out that lightning is fairly impartial to where it strikes. It turns out that we and everything else on the earth are partial to where lightning strikes. The whole water cycle plays a role in charging the atmosphere with electricity but somehow we begin radiating electricity, too, daring that thunderbolt to strike us. So, whenever a downward leader (from the cloud) gets close to an upward streamer (from the earth) is when lightning strikes. It doesn't matter how tall you are compared to your surroundings. Lightning's been known to strike the bare ground mere feet away from tall metal poles. 

"Oops," admitted Andrew. "Just this morning when we were waiting for the bus, I told Rachel that she didn't have to worry about lightning because of all the trees. She pointed out which tree was most likely to get hit first—the tallest one—and I told her she was right."

Even though lightning does not strike the tallest object you're still not supposed to take shelter under a tree because trees are more likely to be hit since they are proven "paths of least resistance" to the ground. But not only because they're tall—like, if you chose the second or third tallest tree of three trees to hide under during a thunderstorm, anyone one of them could be hit. Lightning doesn't measure to see which tree is tallest; it will just pick one. Randomly. Or maybe it will pick the puny sapling. It doesn't care.

Ideally you'd get inside a car or a building to get out of the storm—and not because of the rubber tires on the car rubber is no match for the electrical power of lightning. Rather, the car acts as a Faraday cage. I imagine houses are similar. If I'm inside, the electricity isn't going to choose me (hopefully) but will instead choose my pipes or something. 

Andrew and I were both a little spooked after reading so much about lightning yesterday. 

Poor statistics

Today was a long and draining day as well. I felt like I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off for the entire three hour block at church. Nothing seemed to be going quite as planned. For example, we're trying to coordinate male teachers for all of the classes next week to give our female teachers the opportunity to attend Relief Society meeting for Mother's Day. We needed—and got!—seven volunteers. I began emailing them their assignments (once home from my crazy day of running around at church) and even as I was still sending out emails began to get replies to my message saying that they were really sorry but wouldn't actually be available to substitute next week.

Four out of seven men replied saying that other things had come up. They forgot they had to teach elsewhere. Or they got called into work. Or their wife informed them they'd be vacationing.

All good excuses. All good intentions. But such a headache for me (and Marian, who I forwarded all the emails to).

4 out of 7?! That's a 57% drop-out rate! I'm crossing my fingers we can hold onto the 43% we have left...

That's just the way today went. Three steps forward, four steps back. You can't win 'em all.

But your babies can make it onto the front page of the local newspaper and that's just as good, right?

A Little Wilted

Our entire family is exhausted. We've worked very hard the past couple of days.

Yesterday Andrew and I spent hours digging out three large holly bushes (that wanted very much to become a tree) in our front yard. It took us between three and four hours to remove one of the stumps if that gives you any idea how long we were out there. It was back-breaking labour and Andrew, the dear boy, did most of it because I was no match for that huge stump.

Andrew rigged a lever system to pry the stump out of the ground after we'd sawed through many (many, many) roots. He'd jump on the lever and you could see the stump being wrenched from its stronghold in the ground. I'd jump on the lever and...nothing.

It took us hours of digging, sawing and...levering...to get these stumps out.

Pyjama Party

In this month's BYU Alumni email, Cute Girls Hairstyles was featured since the creator is a BYU graduate. I actually think I may have stumbled upon her blog years ago when Rachel was little but the timing just wasn't right for me to become an avid reader (perhaps because Rachel's never really enjoyed having her hair brushed). I pulled it up a couple of days ago and watched a few videos while I was nursing Benjamin. Miriam soon wandered over to join me and was absolutely hooked.

"Let's watch another one!" she'd say after each video ended.

I don't even know how many we watched but now Miriam's all about hair. Yesterday morning she requested that we do "just plain straight hair with two braids—one on this side and one on this side. Then womp, womp, put them over my head. With two headbands."

She described (and pantomimed) the Double Braid [Sparkly] Headband and sat perfectly still while I did her hair. Her hair's a little wavy because yesterday we had it in another hairdo we'd found on CGH.

Living Now

Sometimes the best medicine to fight unwanted nostalgia is to settle down for some playtime on the floor with the kiddos. Ignore the memories. Ignore the dishes. Ignore everything but them. Because they are what's really important now.

Benjamin's somehow fallen into this miraculous sleeping pattern where he, like, goes to bed at a decent hour, wakes up to nurse once in the night, and then demands to take at least one (and sometimes—get this!—two) naps a day. It's been going on for more than a couple (but less than several) days now and it's kind of amazing.

When he went down for his nap today Miriam wanted to play butterfly princesses but I just couldn't see myself doing that at the moment. Besides when "the whole house is the sky" and we're supposed to "use blankets for wings and run around the house to fly" and the baby is actually napping I start brainstorming quieter activities. So I suggested that we do some puzzles together.

Quiet. No imagination on my part. Perfect.

We did "big girl" puzzles until he woke up and then brought out the baby puzzles after (because Miriam was still in a puzzle mood).

She was trying to teach him how to do the puzzles and he was trying to explore the puzzles and it caused a little frustration for both of them because neither one of them were playing "right" in the other's eyes. But they did well together.

Unfortunate Anniversary

Suddenly it's May. Did you notice? That sure crept up on us! And May is such a scary month, too, because after May comes June and that thought alone is bringing a lot of painful memories to the surface.

I didn't think it would be like this. I really didn't. I've always been one for moving forward, but this year has been hard. In just two days, Benjamin will be eleven months old. We're coming up on his first birthday and have already started our anniversary memories.

"This time last year, I was in Ghana," Andrew reminded me yesterday.

I'm glad that he went to Ghana and I was happy for him last year, too—or at least as happy as an expectant mother can be when she's told it will be up to her to do dinnertime and bedtime by herself every day for three weeks while her husband is on the other side of the globe. I wasn't entirely alone, I realize, since we were living with Andrew's parents and mine were just down the street—but still, it was a burden.

When Andrew came home from Ghana I was thirty weeks pregnant and was due to have my glucose screening the following week. I'd fail that, have the more complicated test the next day and be diagnosed with gestational diabetes. Then we'd go camping.

I'm glad that we went camping and I was glad last year as well—or at least as glad as an expectant mother can be when she has to climb up and down a ladder to the sleeping quarters and tiptoe through a mouse-infested cabin to go to the bathroom twenty thousand times a night. It was a wonderful trip and I'm truly glad we went, even if I ended up catching Rachel's horrible cold.

We'd get back from camping, I'd go to the doctor and we'd look over my glucose numbers to see if I am able to control my diabetes through diet and exercise. I will. But I'll complain about being sick and my doctor will tell me that it's just a cold and I'll be fine.

By now we're already at the end of May. It's Memorial Day and my parents invite us to go to the copper mine, a trip which doesn't work out at all, so instead we'll go to the park to play with them (and with Auntie Emily who'd come down to visit from Idaho). On Tuesday, I'd take Rachel for her kindergarten check up. She'd have to get shots. I'd have to wrestle her to the table in order for that to happen. On Wednesday, I'd take the girls to their dentist appointments but will talk Andrew into coming with us so that he can wrestle Rachel to the chair instead of me. She'll throw a fit, though, so I'll go with her and Andrew will go with Miriam.

I'm now 33 weeks pregnant.

Tiny friends

Benjamin and his friend Oliva are just about (but not quite) a month apart but Oliva's got a whole head and shoulders on that boy, not to mention a number of skills. But that's okay because he's slowly catching up to her.

Here they are on Thanksgiving Day 2012 when Benjamin was still 5 months and Oliva was 6:



I love how their limbs are all blurry. I don't think these two ever stop moving!

Today I met Olivia's mom at the library for story time (and to visit teach her since it's the last day of the month and I hadn't gotten to her yet). We stayed to chat after story time with a few other moms who were there and Benjamin and Olivia played "together" in the way that babies their age do (which means that they didn't play together at all; rather they were both exploring the environment they happened to share at the moment (which isn't exactly parallel play either)).

At one point, Olivia, who is still a full head taller than Benjamin and who pulls up on everything she can in order to cruise around the room, decided she needed even more height to play with the beads better, so she enlisted Benjamin as her footstool:



She's standing on his leg and has her knee on his shoulder. He growled at her a little but didn't show he minded too much otherwise. It was pretty funny.

Later Olivia decided she wanted to be on the other side of Benjamin and crawled right on over his lap.

Kathleen was quick enough to get these pictures but (rather unfortunately  was not quick enough to capture the shot of them sitting side by side with their arms around each other or the one where they were patting each other's heads.

It sure is fun to watch these two play together!

(Miriam was off looking at the turtles in the fish tank and playing hopscotch with a friend's granddaughter while I was watching the babies play; she had fun, too!)