Birdie

As you know, we've had tons of snow. I cannot believe how tall the girls are standing on top of that mountain of snow in our front yard. Inches and inches of snow. And it just snowed again this week. The third week of March! It better be done now.

As the snow started to melt a little after the last big storm, my heart melted a little too and I told Dan I would take the kids sledding with him

Unfortunately, the snow had melted a little too much and the hills were more muddy than anything. But it was a nice out-of-the-routine thing to do on a Tuesday.

Story time at the library was St. Patrick's Day-themed last week, and Gwen was excited to make a leprechaun. But she could NOT wrap her mind around the concept of what a leprechaun is. I kept trying to help her cut and glue the appropriate parts, but when it came time to draw the leprechaun's mouth, she wanted it on his forehead.

It was then I realized that she had been fighting me the whole time because she thought she was making a red-headed boy wearing a green shirt with a black stripe.

Not to be outdone, June's latest crafts include taping cheese to everything. She handed this one to me while I was on the phone with someone.

That's a piece of provolone cheese taped to a cup. There have been many things like that lately.

I was able to sneak away to the Manhattan Temple last Friday night with my friend, Aubree. It was so nice to have a girl chat on the train and then attend a session at the temple. 

That is what my face looks like at 11:00 at night. I am sooo a morning person.

Last week, as I went downstairs to change the laundry, something flew right by my ear. And I screamed big time. My first thought was that it had to be a moth, but that it had to be the biggest moth I had ever encountered. I stood perfectly still. And nothing happened. And just as I was about to move again, convinced it was all in my head, I saw it.

A bird.

In our basement.

We already call our basement, "the haunted basement". It's a million years old and creaky and a little smelly, and I really thought it was creepy when we first moved in. I have since come to love Old Hauntie because it's always a good temperature and a great place for the kids to play without wrecking the living room or other places guests see as soon as they walk in.

So I ran upstairs and yelled to Dan, "There's a bird flying around in the basement." Dan, sweet man that he is, gave me the look that he always gives me when he doesn't believe a word of what I'm saying.

I have a tendency to exaggerate. When we were first married, I yelled to Dan to come save me from an 8-foot spider that was about to attack me in our ghetto Las Vegas apartment. And he hasn't believed a word I have said since. We once went canoeing when we lived in Tampa. And he didn't believe me when I saw a dolphin's fin right next to us. He didn't believe me until dolphins were circling our canoe. It was beautiful. And a little freaky. We would see them and then they would completely disappear, and I was convinced they were going to tip us over into the alligator water.

Which brings me to another time Dan didn't believe me. We were canoeing AGAIN (which really makes it sound like it's something we do regularly--we don't), and Dan was teasing me about how we might see an alligator. And I did. We were facing each other, and I saw an alligator just over Dan's shoulder, and we were heading right toward him. I could not speak. I just pointed and gasped, and Dan rolled his eyes, until he looked behind him and then he freaked out. And then made us go closer. And closer. Until I exclaimed I was never going to speak to him again. At which point he got even closer.

We finally turned around but not until he got some good pictures.

Anyway, so Dan didn't believe me about our new pet bird either. And then he went downstairs and it was completely silent and still. And then the bird flapped its wings.

Dan chased it up the stairs where it landed on our watering can.

Dan went outside of the house and opened the side door next to the watering can, and I had the job of chasing the bird out with a broom. I didn't know how to scare the bird out so I started screaming "OOGLY BOOGLY". That did the trick! Just call me Dr. Doolittle. Or Dr. Doeslittle.

The girls were very excited about the bird, and in the midst of all of the chaos, June was peppering me with questions: "Does it have a beak? Is it lonely? Did it say AHHHH when it saw you? Is it colorful?"

After the ordeal was over, I told Dan how grateful I was that it was a bird and not a bat when June asked me, "Do bats wear pants?"

And on the prayer front--we are still working on saying good prayers in this house. Here are some of the things June has prayed for recently. You always know what went down right before the prayer because June will mention it in her prayer. And then will usually say something completely random.

"Please keep the birds out of our house. And please tell me if a small rabbit can have a big mouth."

"Please help Gwen to stop screaming NOOO! all of the time."

"Please help Baby Harris to eat his applesauce."

And there has been an increase of talk about Dan in her prayers, and they always have me rolling.

"Please help Daddy to not take things that aren't his."  That Dan! Such a thief!

And then there's the more general--"Please help us all with Daddy."

This wasn't a prayer, but June did ask me yesterday, "Mom, can I help you get smarter?"

That would be answer to my prayers at this point. I need all the brain help I can get.

The End.

8 Years In.

Dan and I celebrated our 8-year anniversary on Monday. In full disclosure, we celebrated on Saturday by eating hibachi and going to Last Licks. On the actual day, both of us had forgotten it was our anniversary until several hours into the day when Dan received an alert on his phone about it.

The 8-year anniversary gift is pottery and bronze, but the closest thing we got to that was eating our ice cream in bowls instead of cones.

Guess whose ice cream belongs to whom. Man, are we opposites or what. But I need some opposite-of-me in my life.

Before I got married, I was pretty scared of getting married. I felt like I had been bombarded with terrible marriage stories where husbands were living double lives or had secret problems they hadn't disclosed and that then I would be scared and trapped and probably have babies to take care of by myself.

And those things do happen. I have lots of friends who have been through what seems like every possible thing a person can go through, and they are still pushing forward making hard marriages work or they had to get divorced and they are working every day to raise great kids all on their own.

And so while Dan and I had a great courtship and I knew he was a good guy, I also braced myself for whatever was going to happen after we got married--after the so-called "honeymoon" stage was over and all of the truth came out.

But Dan is a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of person. He didn't hide the fact that he doesn't like to tidy up, but will if asked. He was open with me that he wasn't totally sure what he wanted to do for his career but was sure he would do something good. He was open about his love for the Gospel but readily admitted that there were things he didn't understand.

This picture is blurry to represent how our strong love makes everything else blurry so we can only see each other.

I should've been a poet.

It never even occurred to me that I would be the tough one in our marriage. Not tough as in strong, but tough as in difficult. It never occurred to me that I would be the one that would have a mini-faith crisis when I was pregnant with Gwen or that my anxiety would spin out of control time and time again and that Dan would support me as I received professional help, or that I would become so sick with each pregnancy that Dan would have to be mom and dad for months while I lay perfectly still on our bed, counting down the seconds until I wasn't pregnant anymore. I never thought we would have a kid with special needs and that Dan would come up with a special "shoe hammer" that he would tap all over June's tennis shoes until she thought they fit right each morning while I worried that she was going to miss the bus.

And there are millions of other things, like the fact that he cleans the kitchen every night after I'm already in bed, delivers tearful Christmas morning devotionals to our girls, or takes the girls out in the snow because I hate it, but there's just not enough room to mention them all here.

I love you, Dan. I really do. Thanks for being the best decision I ever made.

In Like a Lion If By Lion You Mean Snowstorm

Can you guys even hear me under the 14 inches of snow our house has been buried under these past few days? We are going on day 3 of no school, and it's actually been our best one yet. The first two I lazed about. I'm not against lazing, but I over-lazed. Today, I got up and made my kids do school work and actually showered and did my make-up even though I'm not going anywhere. And it improved everything. Maybe life is better when I'm not the Snow Day Urchin. You can quote me on that deep thought if you like.

But let's back up.

Last week, some extremely important things happened. First, I managed to put the amazing curl in June's hair ever. It only lasted half the day, but those six hours were blissful.

And I don't know what this is except it's cute.

Dan's closest friend at work is Hindu, and so after much discussion about religion, the two of them decided to switch eating habits for the day. Dan couldn't have any meat (yes, I know that many Hindus eat some meat, but his friend avoids it out of respect of hurting any life form), and his friend didn't drink coffee, tea or alcohol for the day.

I don't know if I've ever seen Dan eat a non-meaty lunch or dinner in my life.

He did pretty well. But by the time he got home Thursday, we had all had really stressful days so we decided to eat the most indulgent dinner ever--ice cream.

That's right. Our vegetarian dinner was at Last Licks. 

Of course it was delicious. I ordered Devil Dog, June ordered Nutella Chip, Gwen had Red Velvet Oreo, and Dan ordered . . . sigh . . . butter pecan.

My Devil Dog wasn't as good as I remembered it, so I asked June to trade me some bites. She's the one you want to start a negotiation with. She loves pleasing people.

Dan enjoyed his butter pecan, but snuck a bite of Gwen's when she wasn't looking. And then realized how amazing non-butter pecan ice cream can be. He asked her to trade some bites, and being Gwen, she wasn't having it.

Lesson--Don't order butter pecan and don't expect to trade with Gwen.

Remember how last post I mentioned wanting to do some spring cleaning? Well, Dan didn't read that. But because we are SOULMATES he decided he wanted to reorganize the kitchen Saturday. This is not characteristic of Dan, so I couldn't stop asking him about it. First off, our kitchen has not been well organized since we moved in. It has some wonky spaces, and we have just made do. But Dan was fed up and decided to come up with a better solution.

But Dan hates cleaning. I couldn't quite put it together, and so I kept asking him about it until we got to the bare bones of it. And so last Saturday, I learned something new about my husband. The reason he hates cleaning is that it's so temporary. Everything gets messed up again. But he likes a reorganization project because the effects are long lasting. It sounds ridiculous, but I felt like it actually cleared up 90% of our marital misunderstandings. 

So while he did about half of our kitchen, I reorganized our bathroom closet, linen closet and went through the kids' clothes. I have to be stealthy because my kids don't want anything thrown away ever. I can't tell you how many times I have thrown something away and then June goes to dump the food off her plate after dinner and upon finding said thrown out object in the trash, screams in horror and brings it to me.

"I don't want this pink crumpled up piece of paper to be thrown away!" she exclaims. "I need it!"

At which point I feign total ignorance even though everyone knows I'm the big meanie who insists on throwing away perfectly good pieces of crumpled up paper. What can I say? I was born evil.

Also on Saturday, June had her swim lessons. Her teacher, Miss Cathy, is honestly a miracle worker who has stretched June to swim better than ever. And she takes a lot of crud from her students, my child being no exception.

Once, while she had June floating on her back, she told June to count to ten and then she could be done. Upon arriving at ten, June screamed the number and pushed her head back as far as she could for emphasis, nailing Miss Cathy in the jaw. Miss Cathy laughed it off.

Another time, June swam to Miss Cathy, who was a considerably farther distance away than usual. By the time June reached her, she had her arms stretched as far in front of her as possible, ready to cling on to the first thing she could grab. And she did. At which point Miss Cathy said, "Grab my shoulders, not my boobs."

Or the time that Miss Cathy had to tell June that there was a limit of 16 hugs per class. And no, I'm not making up that number. June loves hugging people to death.

And yet she still loves June. And so I love her forever.

Miss Cathy wanted to take a funny photo with June this last class. But June could not understand that she needed to open her legs.

Until another teacher stepped in and helped June out.

I'm pretty sure Miss Cathy wanted June sitting on her shoulders, not her head, but it was close enough.

Saturday night, we went to see our neighbor girls in their high school musical, and I actually GOT READY and so I had to document.

I'm glad I'm finally at a stage of life where I'm at peace with my broken nose. That's the best thing about being in my 30s. Lots of peace with things I didn't like before. Is it peace or exhaustion? You be the judge.

The play was "Once Upon a Mattress" and it was surprisingly good. I was really blown away. Their lead girl was called back for a Broadway musical at one point in her young career. And all of the other soloists had great voices too. It was awesome entertainment.

My neighbor Sarah was one of the ladies-in-waiting, and she did a great job.

And her sister, Emily, as well as an Emily from our church group were in the pit.

Sunday, June gave a talk at church. Here is Dan helping her practice:

She did a great job, but my favorite part was when she hushed some kids in the back. Looked at them, pointed and said "SHHHH!" Right into the microphone.

Which brings us to this week which can only really be summed up by--snow. Snooooooooow. Or should I call it sNOOOOOOw. Because I'm sick of the snow. It's March. Winter needs wrap it up.

Dan left for Chicago on Monday and was supposed to fly back Wednesday, but was able to come home last Tuesday when the weather reports showed he wouldn't be coming back for a looooooooong time if he didn't hurry. I was so grateful he was able to come home.

So we received 14 inches of the stuff. One lady from church has 22. Lots of my friends lost power, but we've been very fortunate in that area.

So there's been lots of playing. Here the girls are using "birds" (clothespins) and feeding them "worms" (pipe cleaners).

Yesterday, Gwen took a nasty, nasty fall down our terrible basement stairs and has sustained the biggest goose egg injury known to man.

It's a lot smaller but a lot purple-r today.

Last night, Dan took the girls out and made a snow cave. He once spent the night in a snow cave. It was his favorite scouting/camping experience. Kind of like my favorite camping experience, which is when I didn't camp at all ever.

And like I said, today we have been doing schoolwork and June has been writing one of her famous "chapter books". She illustrates the pictures and dictates the story, and I serve as scribe.

Her book, complete with bookmark.

I wish I had captured a picture of the title of the book, which is Heart World by Grumpy Dumpy-Dump.

Right now, I'm keeping Harris from typing on the keyboard by holding him back with my leg, so I guess I'm done now.

The End.