P is for poke

Due to parent/teacher conferences Benjamin didn't have kindergarten this morning so he got to accompany me to the doctor for my very last shot (of progesterone). It's really quite exciting because not only does it mean that the baby will at least be born at term (if not full term), it also means that I don't have to endure any more painful shots in my rear end (hallelujah).

I took Benjamin and Zoë in to get flu shots on Monday (Rachel and Miriam had theirs last week) so they were extra sympathetic about my "poke" this morning. Zoë was so funny about her flu shot. The bigger kids all got their shot in their arm; Zoë is such a tiny thing, however, that the nurse decided that her thigh was still the best place for her shot. But because all the other kids had been or were currently complaining about their sore arms, Zoë was, too.

"Gock-gor goke me!" she'd sniff over and over again, rubbing her arm. "Ow-me."

(Translation: "Doctor poke me. Owie.")

She could not be convinced that her arm was fine, even though her bandaid was on her leg. Everyone else had a sore arm so she did, too, and that was final.

Yesterday she kept jabbing me with a toy, saying, "Goke! Goke! Goke!"

I was like, "Ow! Stop that! Zoë, that hurts! Stop poking me. Seriously. Ow. Stop."

Finally I took her instrument of torture away—because come on!—and she got all sulky, patted my shoulder, and explained matter-of-factly, "Mommy, I gock-gor!"

Well, then! Poke away!

Anyway, both kids were very concerned at the doctor this morning. Benjamin wanted to know why it was so hard to push the shot in because his shot "just took a second—POW! Done."

It's because this stuff is thick as all get out!

Zoë kept repeating, "Gock-gor goke you? Gock-gor goke you? Gock-gor goke you?" which I'm sure my "gock-gor" couldn't decode at all, so I decoded it for him. Sometimes I do that in public just so people don't think my children are crazy.

"Yes, the doctor poked me. It's alright."

One day she'll figure out other phonemes, like /d/ or /p/, and then we'll all understand her a lot better.

Speaking of P...

[WARNING: slightly inappropriate (ie. potty-word themed) story below; reader discretion is advised]

What baby?

Last night Andrew formally admitted that he hardly gets a chance to think about our impending addition during the day and when he gets home he's always a little surprised to see me waddling around, large with child. Like, "Oh, yeah! She's pregnant!"

I've suspected as much for quite some time now. Most telling was one evening a few weeks ago when I was shopping online for a new car seat. Both Andrew and I were in the office (he was working; I was shopping...obviously) so when I'd mostly made up my mind I asked him his opinion.

"I'm just going to go ahead and get another car seat like Zoë's because I know I like it. It's not an infant seat but it says 5 lbs. and up, and I never carry around my babies in their car seats anyway, so it feels like a waste of money to get one of those to use for a year when we can just get a convertible car seat and use it for several years, ya know? So, what do you think—blue or grey?"

"Do we need an extra car seat?" Andrew replied, slightly distracted. "I guess that's a good idea if, like, Zoë's car seat isn't around and we need to take her somewhere in another vehicle or..."

"Honey," I said in a chastising tone, glaring at the back of his head.

He turned around in his chair to face me.

"What?" he asked innocently.

"I'm not getting an extra car seat. I'm getting a car seat for the new baby..."

"Oh, yeah!" he gasped. "Ummm...blue."

Good recovery.

Autumn comes, the summer is past

Zoë, as it turns out, has no solid memory of autumn to draw on and so far she's finding this new season to be rather frustrating. Every morning when we walk outside to say goodbye to the kids she takes in the crisp fall air, the cloudy mountains, and the freshly fallen leaves and starts muttering about how "messy" and "gucky" everything is.

"Ugh! Ugh! Trees—yellow! Messy, messy trees! Grass—messy! Ugh! Yellow trees."

An Actual "School Night!"

Last night was "Grandparent Night" at the school. It's basically just a ploy to get grandparents to spoil their children at the book fair, but they also had some treats and activities to do...which is more than their old school ever did (with Easley's "grandfriend" breakfasts we never had planned activities beyond eating a class-donated breakfast and either sitting around the classrooms or traipsing down to the book fair). The PTA sponsored this event so as room parent I didn't have to do anything. 

Oh, did I mention that I'm room parent for Benjamin's class? I tried desperately (read: I simply didn't volunteer for the position) to get out of it this year because I've been room parent for either Rachel or Miriam (or both) since Rachel started kindergarten and, frankly, it can be quite a lot to handle when you have to (a) plan parties and coordinate grandfriend breakfasts and solicit donations and volunteers and help out in the classroom and with all the fundraising and (b) have a new baby. 

I know because I've done it. And I'm feeling a little swamped right now already and since we have a new baby on the way I thought it was an excellent excuse to take a year off. 

But Benjamin's teacher is my friend and no one signed up to be room parent. So I said I would do it. 

And it's really not half as bad as it was at either Easley or Eno Valley. All I have to do is coordinate parent volunteers for two field trips, one field day, and one "Kinder 500" day (whatever that is). No parties. No begging for donations. 

I guess I have to do stuff for teacher appreciation week as well, but I can totally handle that because kindergarten teachers get two room parents (because of the whole half-day/AM/PM thing) so I only have to do half the appreciating (not that I don't fully appreciate his teacher...just that I sometimes don't particularly enjoy decorating doors).

Anyway, I've always gone to the grandfriend breakfasts (I think Andrew went to one once when I was double booked...or when they moved the school schedule to start at 7:45 and I was like, "There is literally no way I can get myself and a baby and a preschooler out the door in time to make it") and have helped set out the breakfast and greet the parents and once I think I even took the girls down to the book fair. But they've never had their grandparents take them...

...until now!

Now we live close enough to grandparents that our grandparents can go! So my parents had the honour of escorting my children to Grandparent Night.

Trading places

I guess I'm nesting?

Frankly I feel like I have been force-nesting the past several months (moving will do that to you, I suppose) and though I don't really feel like I have the time or energy to do anything to get ready for baby, I know that baby is coming and there are things I have to do (and so I'm ever so slowly getting around to doing them).

I guess that's not really nesting.

"Nesting is the act of preparing your home for your baby's arrival, often fueled by big bursts of energy late in pregnancy," so says BabyCenter, and although I am preparing my home for my baby's arrival (I guess), it is certainly not fuelled by "big bursts of energy."

So I'm not really nesting. But I'm preparing anyway.

Part of my preparations involved going through Benjamin's old clothes and desperately trying to remove all the spit-up stains from them. That child had reflux so bad! Isn't it funny how they seemed so clean when I (almost tearfully) packed them away but now that I'm busting them out—five-ish years later—they're absolutely covered in yellow stains? (That's the proteins from breastmilk, apparently, and the solution is evidently OxiClean so maybe I need to give that a try because I still have a whole pile of adorable outfits that look somewhat disgusting).

So I sorted and I washed (and we all oohed and aahed over the tiny preemie outfits that were too big for Benjamin when he was brand new) and I folded up the "newborn" and 0-3 month clothes for Alexander. And then I left them in piles on the floor because...I had no idea what I was going to do with them.

They sat around so long that I ended up folding them a second time (thanks, kids) before it dawned on me that we have half an empty dresser sitting in Miriam's room.

Women's Broadcast

Yesterday I took Rachel and Miriam to the General Women's Broadcast (and pre-party). Miriam isn't technically old enough but we brought her anyway because she'll be eight in one month (we may have called her an imposter the whole time, but we brought her). 

Our stake had a couple of service projects (fleece blankets and card making (I think the cards were to go to Meals on Wheels; I'm not sure where the blankets were headed). The girls and I had fun helping tie a pretty peach quilt.

 

Living here: Libraries and other tales

Sometimes I still have to remind myself that we live here now. Like, for realsies. It's not an extended vacation or visit. We're not going back. That chapter of our life is over. We're here now.

Sometimes that's a good thing. Like when my niece calls to see if she can drop by to play with my kids, or when the mountains are glowing majestically in the morning sunshine, or when my doctor doesn't say anything about my temple garments because, well, he's Mormon, too. 

And then I just kind of smile and think to myself, "This is nice."

Sometimes, however, it's less nice. Like when our friends in North Carolina are on fall break and are all heading to the beach because it's still warm enough to do that and we (a) don't have any fall break to speak of and (b) are entirely unacclimatized to this weather (why so cold?!); or when we go to church and I look around at all the homogeny and realize that no one is going to be belting baptist hymns as they walk down the aisle to bear their testimony this week...or any week; or when we visit the library for the first time and realize (a) how small it is, (b) that it is an independent library, not a branch with loaning privileges at other branches, and (c) we are on "probation" for a few months and can have only ten items (ten items!!) checked out at any given time per family (not per card—per family). 

And then I almost want to start crying and think to myself, "We live here now?"

Yeah, the library was kind of a big one for me this week. I literally almost cried when they said we could check out ten whole items. Like, ten? How do I fuel my family of readers for more than...a day...with only ten books? Gulp.

Concerts and Roadkill

On Thursday night my mom invited me to a master class that my cousin (well, my dad's cousin's son) was playing in, so imagine my surprise when I arrived at the concert hall (a good ten minutes late) and found out that it was jam-packed because it wasn't a master class at all. It was a full blown concert for some visiting faculty of percussion. My mom was pretty surprised by it as well.

Even though I was a little underdressed for a concert of that calibre, it was fun to get to go. And even though I didn't quite communicate to my mom that Rachel was coming with me she graciously allowed Rachel to sit on her lap for the whole concert...well, at least for the half we stayed for.

We left during intermission because (a) it wasn't exactly what we had been expecting to attend and (b) it was a school night so sticking around for the second half of the concert wasn't exactly feasible.

When we got outside it was cold, dark, and rainy. I don't like driving in the rain, but I can do it. And I don't like driving in the dark, but I can do it. Driving in dark while it's raining is, quite possibly the worst (except maybe for snow...dunno about that one...yet). To further increase my anxiety, I was in Andrew's car—his mom's old car—which I'm not as used to driving as our van (though I did originally learn to drive in it).

So, we're driving along and things are going just fine, despite my white knuckles, and we're almost home when I spy an entire trail of eyes on the side of the road. It's a family of raccoons looking to cross the street. I slowed down and one of the raccoons ran across the road but the rest stayed exactly where they were.

I had a car coming up behind me pretty quickly and since the raccoons weren't moving I figured I should probably just go. So I did. I brought my car up to speed and...then that one raccoon that had ran across the road turned around and darted right in front of me!

Ka-thunk-a-crunch!

"Moooooooom!" Rachel wailed from the backseat.

Andrew's Birthday

We missed celebrating Andrew's birthday yesterday because he had to work late; he was gone before we were up in the morning and came home after the kids were in bed. Today, although he missed dinner—which was super fancy (grilled cheese and tomato soup from a can)—he was home in time to have a little family party before bed.

Dinner was a little rushed because the kids had doctor appointments after school, which we didn't finish with until nearly 5:00, and Rachel had Activity Days at 6:00. She helped me make dinner and we were sitting down to eat by 5:30. Truthfully, I haven't made tomato soup in ages but we might be making it more often because my most picky eater (I'll let you guess who that is (just kidding: it's Zoë—duh)) tasted her bowl of soup and said, "Oh, Momma! Dis nummy!" and slurped down three bowlfuls!

Never mind the fact that Miriam is a dedicated tomato soup hater. If Zoë will eat it, we'll be making it.

After dinner I sent the kids upstairs to decorate some wrapping paper for Daddy's present. Rachel didn't participate (she was at church), but Miriam did the section on the left and Benjamin and Zoë did the section on the right:

Family resemblance

Cousin Carter was over yesterday and since he had his first hair cut a few weeks ago and since Andrew, Benjamin, and Grandpa also recently got the traditional Heiss haircut we had to take a picture of the four of them together: