New Year's Resolutions 2012

Look at me, all writing down my resolutions before January even begins. I'm so on top of things.

Actually, my friend Amy asked the general public what their resolutions were for 2012 and it got me thinking about goals I could set. And then it got me thinking about whether I even want to set any goals. I kind of do and I kind of don't.

In 2012, I want to:

• Survive Andrew's last semester at BYU
• Survive the 2.5 weeks he'll be in Ghana
• Survive having a baby & juggling three children
• Survive moving wherever we'll be moving
• Survive settling in and starting a new job and/or Phd program

Beyond that, I think setting any other goals is a bit too lofty of me. 

I have already entered survival mode. I therefore think that I am exempt from making any actual resolutions for the coming new year. 

There's this thing called the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale, which any student of psychology or behavioral science or related fields should recognize—you can find multiple online tests or just calculate your score from the list on Wikipedia. When I fill out this test, looking at December 2011–December 2012, I score well over 300 points, which is the threshold for being "at risk for illness."

It's not that I'm planning on being stressed out in 2012. It's just that I'm planning on having a lot of stressful events occur in my life in 2012. And that's okay; I just don't want to add to the stress by forcing myself to learn how to sew or by making myself feel guilty if I don't clean the bathrooms every other day or anything like that. 

So, no marathon this year. No writing goals or reading goals. No cooking goals or cleaning goals.

Just survival goals. 

I might be being too easy on myself but sometimes easy is good.

New Year's Adam

This morning my mom phoned to see if we wanted to hang out today since both she and my dad had the day off of work. I said that we did because Andrew was working and I thought he'd appreciate some peace and quiet at home while he did so.

We went to the dollar theater, or as Miriam says, "Movie city-er," to watch Puss in Boots. We were not the only ones to think of this activity—the theater was packed and we had gotten there a little late. We were so lucky to find three seats together (we just held the girls on our laps).

It was so lovely outside today (like 50 degrees lovely) that we decided to stop at a park on our way home. All we were wearing was light jackets and we were fine outside for an hour. How's that for December 30th?

Festival of Lights

Spanish Fork does a light display every year and Grandma suggested we go and then one day at dinner said, "We should go today." So we did.

Rachel insisted on playing I Spy in the dark, which was a little more difficult than playing it in the daylight. At one point she said she spied something green but no one could guess what it was. Finally she sighed and said, "It's the grass!"

"I'm pretty sure the grass is brown," I said.

"Mom," she explained matter-of-factly, "Everybody knows grass is green."

"But it's winter," I explained back, "And the grass is dead."

Today when we went out and Rachel saw the grass she sighed and said, "You were right. I was less right."

"About what?" I asked.

"The grass is brown!" she said, sounding just a bit puzzled.

I suppose we're used to the brown grass being covered by snow but this year it hasn't really snowed, so...

Anyway, the lights were wonderful. They had a rocking horse and a ski jumper and some figure skaters that really moved. A frog that flicked out its tongue to catch flies. That sort of thing. The girls were mesmerized. 

We drove through twice, though the girls could have kept driving around in circles all night long.

Artistic Endeavors

This morning I told Andrew that I need to interact with my children. I feel like I've been leaving them alone far too much—did I mention I'm sick? He told me that amazing things have happened while I've been sick and my children seem to have learned to entertain themselves. I should have abandoned them long ago (just kidding).

They've been building towers out of lego, making up stories with their dolls, and also doing a lot of drawing.

Rachel watched James and the Giant Peach for the first time this week. It's a new obsession of hers. She  has actually watched it more than once this week—Andrew let her watch it by herself yesterday. Grandma said she thought it would be a little scary for Rachel, but Rachel loves it. She also will watch Harry Potter I by herself and loves it. But the new Winnie the Pooh movie? That's too scary.

Anyway, here's her picture of the giant peach. James is in the lower righthand corner. On the peach we have a ladybug, a grasshopper, a centipede, the stem, and a spider:

More holiday revelry

Last night my cousin Elizabeth and my Auntie Judy came over to play games with me and Andrew and my mom and dad and Josie. Elizabeth is living in the DC area right now but she flew out for a visit during Christmas break. She came out for about three weeks, actually (her husband flew out, too, but not for as long). 

I saw her a couple of weeks ago at my grandpa's funeral. It was nice of her (and my aunt and uncle) to come (since they're on my mom's side and it was my dad's dad that died). We told each other that we'd have to get together "for sure," but then the holidays happened and then I got sick and we never got around to getting together.

I'm so glad that Elizabeth called a couple of days ago to set this up, though! She leaves tomorrow so we were just able to manage to squeeze in some cousin time before she left.

Josie, Elizabeth, Auntie Judy

We played Catch Phrase, which was really fun, and then we tried a round of UNO Spin before we decided to call it a night. My dad got a job and it was his first day today so he wanted to get to bed so he could wake up feeling refreshed and ready to work. My mom said that him getting a job was the best Christmas present she got this year (he got the phone call on Monday). I agree! I'm so excited for him!

Aunthood

Grade three (1993-1994) was a very busy year for me.

First I became an aunt. Then I got a little sister.

All this before I turned nine years old.

As you can imagine, it was a very difficult year for my family—what with my mother and teenage sister expecting at the same time.

I don't remember much about my sister's baby. I know she went to live in a group home for unwed mothers because I think I remember visiting her there a few times. I think I even remember going to visit her at the hospital, though I never saw the baby. The baby was given up for adoption, which I'm sure was very hard on my sister, and we were told not to talk about it with others.

I was an aunt in theory but not in practice.

My little sister was born on April 7, 1994. My dad checked us out of school to go visit my mom and my sister at the hospital. I had always wanted a little sister and now I finally had one. And she was beautiful...and just a little bit squishy and weird-looking, like most newborns are.

I don't remember when my older sister disappeared again. She had been popping in and out of my life for a few years and, by the time I was nine, she was gone again.

Un-cousins and cousins

We have loved having all the little Gillespies over. And we have loved sending Rachel over to the Gillespie's a lot. It's so great because there are so many little ones all around the same age. Rachel and A are currently four. Then Michael, who will be four in just a little while, and E are currently three. J will be three next month but right now she and Miriam are two. Then there's A—he's one—and J—who is just a couple of months old. It's great.

Rachel spent much more time at the Gillespie's than the children spent over here, but we did have some kids over some of the time and they seemed to have taught Rachel that our toys are actually fun to play with because since they've gone she's still done remarkably well with playing.

A and Michael taught Rachel how to build guns out of lego (oh, joy). They spent a lot of time shooting each other and dying and then coming back to life and shooting each other more.

Boxing Day Play-Doh

In their stockings the girls each got five little tubs of Play-Doh, but when we were cleaning up the Christmas present mess in the living room we just grouped them all together since our [stupid] parental plan was to have them just share them all. However, they have memories like elephants and seemed to remember who got which colours. I don't know how.

We gave them chapstick, too, and I actually do remember which ones we gave to which girls—we gave Miriam Cinderella (blue) and Snow White (dark pink, aka red) and we gave Rachel Tiana (green) and Ariel (pink, aka light red). I was surprised when Miriam dug out the ones she got in her stocking from the pool of stocking stuffers that ended up on our bed.

"This blue one's mine! And this pink one!"

Considering she just grabbed them out of her stocking before casting them aside in favour of other presents I find it rather remarkable that she remembered which ones were her.

The Play-Doh, though, was a little tricker because the girls had to remember five colours that were "theirs." Since they kept fighting over certain colours I decided that neither of them could really remember whose was whose, either, and explained to them that I thought that perhaps "Santa" meant for them to share all the colours.

Christmas 2011

Two years ago we were in Egypt for Christmas and Christmas fell on a Friday which meant that we had church on Christmas day. When Andrew found out Christmas fell on a Sunday this year he was rather confused about how that was even calendarically possible until I pointed out the differing days of Sabbath observance in the places we lived at the time.

When we lived in Egypt Andrew unwisely suggested on Friday morning that we go ahead and open some presents since we were all up, anyway. We unwisely went along with his suggestion and many tears were shed when we had to stop opening presents to get ready for church.

This year we wisely decided to go Grandma's route and taped sheets over the entrances to the living room so that no one (read: children) could even peek inside. We went to church distraction-free.

I was happy to have Grandma and Grandpa come to church with us—they're usually at the BYU ward—because I was feeling so sick and Andrew was kept so busy at the organ and piano. He played for the congregation, the choir, and the primary children. I didn't get to sing at all, even though I was supposed to sing with the choir, because my voice was so totally shot. I was rather sad because I love singing Christmas carols and now we won't sing any until next December. It's like I missed Christmas!

Rachel sang with the primary, though. She didn't want to because it was "too scary." Andrew was up on the stand, though, so getting her up there was easier than I thought—she just ran up to her daddy and then he escorted her to where she needed to be on his way to the piano. Even though I know she knows all the words to this song (we've been singing it before bed every single day for an entire month) she only sang a line or two before she froze—hands clasped together, a big, fake smile pasted on her face.

The primary children finished singing and returned to their seats.

Rachel did not.

A member of the bishopric leaned over, tapped her shoulder, and invited her to go sit down.

She ignored him and remained a smiling statue.

Christmas Eve 2011

So far this holiday has been a little blurry for me. On top of being tired and pregnant I was hit with a nasty head cold—so I was tired and pregnant and tired and sick and tired. That's a whole lot of tiredness. Luckily for me, Andrew is on semester break and even though he's worked every day this break, except for Sunday, he's taken over the majority of the children tending and clothes washing and dish washing and dinner cooking that I ordinarily do so that I can do other things like sleep...and not sneeze all over other people's food. It's been wonderfully relaxing and I'm just about better and we still have a good week left of his break, which means we can maybe have some fun, too!

I think we already had some fun, actually. I know Auntie Sarah came over on Friday to visit with Diana, who is staying at our place, and I know that we played a game together. I even remember that it was called "Rolling through the Ages" and that we played the bronze age. But come to think of it, that might have been Saturday morning that we did that. Ummmm...like I said: blur.

I know we played some other games with some other people—Gillespie people, mostly. I know that Steve was here with Jodie and their three kids and that Rachel has been spending most of her time at the Gillespie's playing with their six grandchildren and often leaving Miriam here, alone, wishing she was older so that she could go, too. Rachel's been loving it. Miriam's been loving it when all the kids come over here.

I know we had Asher over once so that his parents could finish up their Christmas shopping but I frankly don't remember if that was Christmas Adam or Christmas Eve.

On Christmas Eve we went to my parents' house for dinner and festivities. We chatted with Auntie Abra for a while—Miriam even sang her some Christmas songs—and then we had dinner. After dinner the girls were especially excited to act out the nativity.

Rachel wanted to be Mary. She chose a baby doll and wrapped it in swaddling clothes.

Miriam wanted to be Mary. She chose a baby doll and wrapped it in swaddling clothes.