Peek-a-boo and throw up

We had a fool-proof plan for rehearsal on Saturday. I've mostly been taking Zoë with me, which is fine when we're just singing but not-so-fine when I'm supposed to be dancing. She's clingy so I end up dancing with her because she's entered that lovely stranger-danger age and no one but Mommy (and sometimes Daddy or Rachel or my friend Laura (for whatever reason Zoë adores Laura)) will do. That makes dancing hard.

So we decided that I will take Benjamin to rehearsal because he'll happily play in the nursery, and Zoë would be Daddy's shopping buddy. See? Fool-proof.

But then Benjamin started throwing up on Friday night so Andrew stayed home with him and I took Zoë to rehearsal again.

Andrew stayed home with Benjamin yesterday and I took the girls to church. We even stayed for choir, but on the way home Miriam announced that she wasn't feeling well. She made it home and managed to slip into her pyjamas before she started throwing up.

While we were skyping with my mom Miriam put on quite the show, proving to Naanii that she was sick, sick, sick. I'm sure Naanii appreciated watching her throw up and throw up and throw up right there on camera (Andrew's parents sure missed out).

Motherhood and toilet seats

As of today, Zoë has a grand total of seven teeth. She's also sporting a brand new goose egg because gravity is really tricky to figure out.

Benjamin still wets the bed every night but is finally starting to figure out how letters work. He is full of energy all the time. Even when he's sick.

Miriam has memorized her part for the musical frontwards and backwards. She listens to the soundtrack on repeat all night long. (And sometimes she listens to one song on repeat all night long and wakes up in the morning wondering why it's stuck in her head. But I know why...because it's usually stuck in my head as well and for the very same reason.)

Rachel's entering that tricky stage of life where her friends are always feuding and math has gone from addition and basic geometry (name that shape!) to multiplication and fractions. In short, life is starting to seem a whole lot more complicated than it once was.

And I'm right in the middle of it all.

I wanted to be here.

All the feels

Miriam busied herself with some writing notes this evening. First she made a get-well card for Benjamin, who is still sick. He got to leave the house today but only to pick me up at Home Depot (summary: I got a ride to play rehearsal with Marian but she had to go shopping on the way home so Andrew met us there to pick me up (and had to drag all the kids with him)), but he won't be going anywhere tomorrow.

He was so sad when we told him he would be missing church tomorrow. He was even sadder when we wouldn't let him have any strawberries. We saved some for him for when he gets better but we weren't about to give him strawberries just so he could throw them up again! What a waste!

Ever-empathetic Miriam felt bad that he felt bad and made him this card to cheer him up:

Project Linus

I never wrote a post about how we did with our goals from last year (even though Andrew made me a nice pretty graph showing how we did not meet our walking goal) and I never formally declared my resolutions for this year either.

Part of me thinks that's because "keeping a baby alive" is a lofty enough goal but another part of me knows that it's kind of laziness. I've been thinking about goals. I just haven't formalized them.

One of the goals I was thinking of attempting this year was to do a service project every month. I had January and February covered with milk donations and I've been looking for other easy (ie. able to accomplish with limited funds and four children) service projects. I have a few up my sleeve for later in the year (ie. after the musical is over) and I'm totally going to count Trading Tables in April, but I didn't having anything planned for March.

Enter Relief Society.

At enrichment meeting last night we talked about scattering sunshine and tied fleece blankets for Project Linus. We didn't finish all the blankets, though, so I volunteered to take one home for the girls to help me with (not being sexist but ageist—I will welcome Benjamin's help tying fleece blankets in the future when he's older and less infuriating three). I cut the fringe last night after the kids got to bed (because of course they were all still awake when I got home) and Rachel and Miriam helped me tied the knots when they came home from school.

Q: How does one wake up with vomit in their hair?

A: They throw up in their sleep.

I swear this child understands zero bodily function cues.

Like, no wonder he still wets the bed like crazy! I just watched him throw up in his sleep!

How does he even...?

My tummy says...

Dinner didn't manage to satiate Benjamin's little tummy today. Although he ate plenty he was begging for more food before we'd even cleared the table.

"Dessert! Dessert!" he chanted. "I want dessert!"

"We're not having dessert tonight," I said.

"But I promise I want dessert," he said.

And I totally don't doubt that, but it didn't change the fact that there was nothing for dessert.

Miriam finished reading Harry Potter 5 this week and was super excited to get to watch the movie. She and Rachel were going to stay up together and watch it after Benjamin went down for bed (because obviously that movie is too scary for a three-year-old, right?), but after stories he didn't really want to get into bed.

"I'm so, so hungry!" he told me, rolling around on the floor. "My tummy is saying it wants more and more food!"

"I think your tummy is saying it's ready for bed," I said, walking him back to his bed. I started singing  a lullaby to him, patting his tummy to the beat of the song since he doesn't like bedtime tickles like the girls do (they both want back rubs every night; Benjamin loathes back rubs).

"Don't do that, Mommy," he said, pushing my hands away. "My tummy says to stop that."

A spring-like day

We went outside this afternoon to do some work in the garden (mixing in some compost to the soil and such). Benjamin collected a entire "museum" of snails in a jar (he probably found a dozen or so) while I weeded and tilled. Zoë watched everything with interest from her rocking horse.

When we'd finished what we'd set out to do I let Zoë get down from her high horse and we played around. Benjamin practiced pumping his legs on the swing and both kids had a few turns sliding before Zoë decided what she wanted to do most was explore on her own and Benjamin decided he wanted to try to ride his bike.

Here's Zoë doing some exploring:

Cute kids

Benjamin picked out his own outfit on Sunday: red pants, blue striped shirt, suspenders, and, for a little pop, a bright yellow bow tie. He looked dapper (and managed to mangle one of his suspender clips (because everything this boy touches breaks (RIP suspenders))):

He sure does love those red pants!

Leap Year Olympics

Leap years are pretty busy, if you think about it, what with all the leaping, olympicking, and campaigning going on. I, for one, am sick of campaigning already, and so for our special leap year FHE we (I) decided to hold our own Leap Year Olympics.

We talked about the Olympic motto: CITIUS - ALTIUS - FORTIUS (and Andrew then pulled up the MoTab performing Call of the Champtions for background music) and discussed the significance of the -er suffix. Faster! Higher! Stronger!

Then I introduced the first Olympic value—excellence—and read some snippets from a talk that President Hinckley delivered in September of 1999, focusing on the part where he said, "Let us all try to stand a little taller, rise a little higher, be a little better. Make the extra effort. You will be happier."

Our first event was jumping on our new pogo stick thing:

This boy

The good news is...

• my kitchen floor is clean
• my front porch is clean
• a new pair of Crocs is on the way for Benjamin

The bad news is...

• Benjamin held the water button on the fridge down for a long time and flooded the kitchen
• Benjamin opened the front door and peed onto the porch
• We've been missing one of Benjamin's crocs for days now (they're size 7 and he's now size 9 and they both had holes on the bottom from being worn so much so I suppose it was about time but still...missing shoes...grumble)

I have a bit of a Benjamin-induced headache today. We'd get along great if I could keep my eye on him constantly but sometimes I have to do other things—like take the sheets off his bed so I can wash them or practice a dance for the stake musical—and then he gets into serious amounts of mischief.

He also peed in my friend Marian's front yard while I was buckling Zoë up. 

"Mom, I have to go pee," he said.

"Okay," I said, finishing up with her buckle. "Let's go ask..."

And there he was, pants down, watering her lawn.

"...Never mind. Let's just go home."

Today I'll just count my lucky stars that he didn't try to wipe his own bum...and end up smearing poop all over the bathroom. That was last week...

This boy.