Laryngitis

Our friends, who we last visited in Iowa (though I suppose they were here over Christmas break), are in town while they're transitioning from being full-time medical students to being interns. Jodie will be staying at her parents' house in Idaho all year while Steve flits around the country doing rotations here and there. They stopped by to visit today, but only with their youngest. When I asked where their older kids were Jodie said they were swimming at their grandparents' (who happen to live a couple of doors down from us) with their cousins Emily and Ammon (who my girls play with on a fairly regular basis).

The girls immediately wanted to strip down and hop in their swimsuits so that we could join them. So we did.

All the kids splashed around in the (freezing cold) kiddie pool while the adults sat around around watched from the sidelines. All too soon it was time to go.

Jodie called her kids inside for dinner.

Michelle called her kids inside for dinner.

"Hey, my kids," I croaked. "Come get your shoes on."

They didn't hear me. And it's no wonder. I seem to have added laryngitis to my list of ailments.

"Hey! My kids!" I tried again. And failed again. Because of laryngitis.

"Just do whatever you want," Sister Gillespie filled in for me with a smile. "Because your mom can't talk."

She also told her grandchildren that they could have cookies and candy and soda pop for dinner.

She also gloated about never having to take children to swimming lessons ever again.

I think she was having one of those days when she's really happy that she's a grandparent because that title involves less responsibility than the title of parent.

What time do you go to the dentist?

"What time are the girls' dentist appointments?" Andrew asked me this morning.

"2:30," I told him. "It's on the calendar."

"Yeah, but what time are their appointments?"

"2:30—I just said that."

"So when are we going to the dentist?"

"2:30."

"Are you sure? Because who actually goes to the dentist at 2:30?"

"Did they change the time of the appointments? You're the one who talked to them on the phone yesterday," I said, wishing that he'd just get to the point.

"Don't you get it? It's like that joke: What time do you go to the dentist?"

"Oh...tooth hurty."

Surviving: Kindergarten evaluation, shots, and diabetes

Phew.

I survived Rachel's kindergarten evaluation, which included her receiving two shots (that was the traumatic part). We brought our paperwork for North Carolina and our doctor filled that out—she passed everything (hearing, vision, developmental). She's 36.8 lbs (34th percentile) and 43.5 inches (79th percentile), putting her BMI at 13.7 (7th percentile). She's borderline underweight but just barely on the healthy side so we don't have to go see a nutritionist. Lucky us, though if she ends up taking after my side of the family I reckon she'll be tossed into the underweight category soon.

My mom was lucky because I don't think they cared so much about BMI scores when her kids were little or we'd have been at the nutritionist all the time. When I was four I was only in the 2nd percentile for BMI.

Whatever; Rachel's growing nicely. She's grown 2.5 inches and gained 2 lbs. since last year!

She has been nervous about getting shots for several weeks now and even asked to be homeschooled because then she wouldn't have to get any more shots (though she still would because we're a vaccinating family). This morning we were coaching her on how to cope with getting shots—just take a deep breath, look away, and count to ten. I read her my cousin Erin's post about her son Gareth getting his kindergarten shots and being surprised with how little it actually hurt. Rachel was pinching herself in the waiting room to "practice" dealing with pain. I told her to stop because pinching herself probably hurt more than getting a shot and she was making red marks all over her arm. She brought baby Nora so that she could hold her while getting shots and I brought some candy as bribery.

All our preparation was for naught.

Rachel's last day of preschool

Today was Rachel's last day of preschool. Ever.

I thought yesterday was but then I found out that Rachel needed to be at school today because they'd be doing what she called a play (but what ended up being a puppet show) and she was the third little pig and she needed to be there.

Her preschool last year was wonderful and although she attended the very same preschool this year it was under new management and was not as wonderful. There has been very little communication home and poor Rachel was the only girl in her class—with five boys. She still enjoyed going and she did learn a lot. She knows the days of the week in Spanish, can sing Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes in Spanish, learned some sign language, and picked up some other interesting facts along the way.

Most recently they've been talking about our bodies. She learned all about blood and what white blood cells do and what red blood cells do and how your heart pumps your blood.

On the way home from school yesterday she said, "At school I said that diarrhea and banana bread are very similar because they're both brown and kind of squished up."

"I'm sure your teacher appreciated that comment," I said.

Later at dinner she took a sip of water, smacked her lips in a satisfied manner and said, "Ah, I'm going to make some pee now. That's what you do with water, you know."

How sly of her teacher to teach that bit of curriculum at the end of the school year. Now we get to enjoy all that talk at home while the teacher gets off free and easy.

Anyway, Miriam and I left to pick Rachel up from school a few minutes early so that we could watch Rachel's play (which not all the parents even knew about, unfortunately). They retold the story of The Three Little Pigs.



Rachel was the third little pig, a fact she was very proud of because that meant she was the one to trick the wolf.

So much screaming; make it stop

Some days I look into the future and picture myself sending Rachel to kindergarten. It's just around the corner for us, tomorrow being her last day of preschool, and we're moving to North Carolina so it will be full day kindergarten. Rachel will likely be taking the bus to school, which means she'll be gone from around 8:30 in the morning until 4:00 in the afternoon, as far as I can figure.

Yesterday that was making me sad—having my baby leave me all day long. What will I do without her? She's been my little sidekick for going on five years. We've spent one night away from each other (and that was the night I had Miriam and was held in the hospital overnight (against my will)).

Today the thought thrills me. What could be better than getting her out of the house all day long?

Absolutely nothing.

A Perfect Day (Sunday, May 20)

We woke up on Sunday morning and got ready for church; the girls were only a little disappointed that we brought play dresses for them instead of frilly church dresses but, honestly, there wasn't anything that could convince me to bring a frilly church dress to Grover. You never know when someone's going to burst out of the van after church and go running up the hill to go climb trees...

Goblin Valley (Saturday, May 19)

It was freezing when we woke up this morning. Literally freezing. As in there was frozen water outside.

So "the big kids" and Grandpa nixed their plans of doing Sulfur Creek (because that involves two hours of wading through...water) and decided that they'd head straight for Little Wild Horse Canyon and then head on to Goblin Valley and from there to home. Since they were packing up camp, the cabin was bustling with activity, which meant that we all woke up, too.

We had breakfast, I got the girls dressed...and then I accidentally went back to bed on purpose and slept until 11:00 or so while the girls played around outside and inside and Andrew and Grandma played Ticket to Ride. It was a glorious and much-needed nap but it did eat up quite a lovely chunk of the day.

After packing lunch, we headed to Goblin Valley, ourselves.

Rachel was much braver about "the monsters" this year than she was last year. Last year she was terrified and cried for a while before she relaxed and started having fun, all because Grandpa told her that goblins are little monsters and we'd be going to Goblin Valley to play on the goblins. And she believed him 100%.

He told her the same thing this year but this year she understood my explanation that Goblin Valley was named Goblin Valley because whoever named it thought the rocks looked like goblins, not because they actually were goblins, and that I grew up calling such geological features hoodoos, which isn't a scary name at all (except that it rhymes with voodoo).

Anyway, Rachel and Miriam were both excited to go hiking and climbing on the goblins.

And we took approximated one million pictures of them doing so. Are you even remotely surprised?

Cabin Fever (Friday, May 18)

Before we left I had Andrew check the weather report and then I ran to the closet, dug out some extra sweaters and some winter hats and packed those, too. It's a good thing I did because Friday's weather stayed true to what the weatherman predicted and it got cold and windy and wet.


We woke up rather early in the morning because the BYU kids were getting ready to hike Calf Creek.

Rachel had been sleeping with me and Miriam's "camping crib" was right next to our bed. She stirred, sat up, reached for me, and said, "Momma!"

I pulled her out the pack'n'play and into my bed where she promptly stuck her thumb in her mouth and cuddled next to me for a few minutes. She must not have been quite awake through all of that because about five minutes later her eyes fluttered open and she pulled her thumb out of her mouth.

"Uhhh...uhh...uhh..." she stuttered and asked, bewildered, "Are you in my crib?"

She could see the side of the pack'n'play from where she was laying in my bed and assumed that I somehow ended up in her bed instead of the other way around. Her intonation just about killed me, not to mention the way she cocked her head and raised her eyebrows.

"No, silly girl!" I laughed. "You're in my bed."

All three of us just about died laughing and then got up to have breakfast in the cabin kitchen, where it was nice and warm.

Grover 2012 (Thursday, May 17)

We spent the weekend camping in Grover, which is why I haven't blogged since last week. We're home now and have many stories to share. Andrew has, of course, left all the Grover-blogging up to me.

"Boy, you sure have a lot to blog about," he said last night.

"I sure do," I told him, "But not as much as you!"

Hopefully while I write about Grover he'll finish writing about Ghana.

After packing up the vehicles on Thursday morning, we departed for Grover. It's only a 3.5 hour drive but it definitely took us more than four hours to get there. Grandpa followed the van, which Grandma drove, all the way down so that he could stop whenever we had to go potty. And we had to stop to go potty so many times—we stopped three times in one hour just for Miriam, who had to go #1 (everybody out of the car, everybody goes—that's the rule, so that's what happened) and then twenty minutes later declared she had an urgent need to go #2 (this time we didn't make everyone get out because we'd just done that, right?) and then twenty minutes later she had to go #1 again (everybody out, everybody goes). She's going to have to work on coordinating her #1 with her BMs or that drive to North Carolina's going to be really long.

Eventually we made it to the cabin and started setting up camp. Aunt Dorothy warned us that we might find a few mouse carcasses about the cabin—we were the first ones to "use" the cabin this season, though Dorothy and Raymond went last weekend to make sure everything was working and to set out some mouse poison in order to evict their winter visitors.

We opened the door to the cabin and, lo:

Diabolical Diabetes

This morning I woke up and headed straight to the doctor for the three-hour glucose tolerance challenge because I failed the one-hour glucose test...by one point. I figured that I would pass the three-hour test with flying colours since I had failed the one-hour test by one point. Before I went I jotted down the acceptable numbers so that I would know before being told whether I passed the test or not. I can be impatient like that sometimes.

I got in and they pricked my finger to get my fasting levels. Anything less than 95 mg/dl is acceptable. Mine was 72 mg/dl. I thought that was pretty good. And then they gave me the glucose drink, which I guzzled down. I thought that was pretty gross. 100 grams of dextrose? That's like how much sugar is in a liter of Coke. Who drinks that much sugar...ever? Not me.

An hour later they pricked my finger again. Anything less than 180 mg/dl is acceptable. Mine was 225 mg/dl. No good. But you only really fail if two of your numbers are high so I still had time to catch up.