Is It Naptime Yet

This weekend was crazy.
Friday (Jon had this day off because it is Nevada Day Observed. The real Nevada day is Halloween):

1.I was behind on my classes and I still am.
2. I took one test, I still have one more to take and a paper to do..both by tomorrow night (Monday).
3. I got my haircut
4. I made a stop off at Costco
5. Picked up Lilah’s costume from my friend Anna who was darling enough to make it.
6. I did lots of dishes and cleaned my sink out. The stank is now finally gone.
7. Baked cupcakes for the trunk or treat ward party.
8. Carved the pumpkin
It seems like I did other things…but it was I probably relaxed.

Saturday:
My morning went pretty well. Just got things together.
1. Got milano bars ready for cupcakes. ( I copied Amber’s from last year…will post picture later.)
1. Sent Lilah and Jon to the store.
2. Gave Eden a bath.
3. Ate lunch and then put Eden down.
4. Made frosting for the cupcakes with Lilah’s help.
5. Frosting dye was old so I added milk to what I wanted to use to dissolve it…this added so much time
6. Finally frosted cupcakes.
7. Took shower and tried to do my hair quickly.
8. Went to wedding reception
9. Came home..Lilah fell asleep so we missed the dinner part of the ward party
10. woke Lilah up for the trunk or treat and got her ready..Jon got Eden ready.
11. Went to the trunk or treat
12. Went to subway to pick up dinner…8:00 pm
13. Relaxed as we watched Harry Potter.

I’d post pictures, but I’m too lazy to go to my purse and get the camera. I only have them of the cupcakes and my haircut anyways because I didn’t take any at the trunk or treat. At least we still have Halloween. It was just crazy. I’m totally exhausted. Last night while we watched the Harry Potter that was on and then some random shows, Jon fell asleep and then woke up during SNL. We talked a little. I told him I was soo tired, like ten time more tired then other times, my eyelids were soo heavy. I won’t go into more of the conversation, but I have been reminded at how tired I can get. We went to bed late, but I got an extra hour of sleep, not because of daylight savings, but because the girls slept into 8 (which at the old time would be 9!! A whole hour later then they normally wake.) I think the big day of going to a wedding and then the trunk or treat exhausted them. Eden only took one morning nap, and Lilah only got an hour long one. Saturday was just exhausting.

Jon gets hankerings for certain types of food. He’ll watch some cooking show or flip through a recipe book and want to try it. Yesterday he decided he wanted to make beef stew.  He looked up a recipe in his “Where’s Mom now that I need her Cookbook.” and put the ingredients down so he could get them while at the store.  Today he decided we should make it. I hadn’t separated the meat yet, and that way we won’t have to thaw it for the first batch, or keep it in the fridge. Se he made his stew. It took about an hour longer to cook and an extra cup and a quarter water. I made biscuits and Jon and I enjoyed his stew. I think it turned out quite well except I like it a little more beefy. This recipe only called for water, no beef broth.

This is what Lilah said about it:
“Stew makes me bad and then I’ll die.”
I think she was just trying to get out of eating dinner. The kicker is she hadn’t even tried the stew yet and came to the conclusion it would make her die. I don’t know what that says about Jon’s cooking.
Really Lilah isn’t a soup or stew fan. She eats tomato soup because we add cheese, and sometimes she eats vegetable, but only if it has the noodles that are letters. Our thing is we give her about half of what we expect and know her to eat…then she can have more or be done. Also of we have a desert she can then have desert if she eats at least one serving of food. This can be bad because she might normally eat more, but because a tasty treat awaits her she only eats the first serving. If it’s something I know she likes, I usually don’t lessen it, and I think I’ll be giving her a little more now that we have a bag full of candy in the cupboard from the trunk or treat.

Well I lost her for just  a short period…and it was inside my own home. I was talking to my sister Kristi and Eden needed a diaper change. I changed her poopy bottom and then went into my bathroom to wash my hands. I washed them while having the phone propped in my neck an then promptly left, shut the door to my bathroom and then the door to my room, and went back to the living room to sit on the couch where Lilah was just lying. As I sat and talked, or really mostly listened, I wondered “Where is Eden?” She usually follows me out or makes more noise than she is. I first went into the girls room…I just peeked in…nothing…then I checked the kitchen and living room, in case she had been in the kitchen and then the living room…nothing. I checked my room…I had shut the door behind me but maybe she came while I was washing my hands. No Eden. I thought I hear a little noise…but at last I saw no none. Of course I was doing all this rather quickly so I checked more thoroughly in the girls room, under the crib and behind it. No Eden. Again around in circles in the house, back to my room…Nothing. Then I thought no she couldn’t have gone in the bathroom I was only there for a minute, but alas as I tried to open the my bathroom door something was in front of it. A 20 pound one year old. She didn’t seemed scared, but she gave me a good cuddle and hug when I picked her up. There is a night light in our bathroom, so at least it wasn’t completely dark. The noise I heard must have come form under the door, it just didn’t come from a recognizable direction. So there’s my bad mom move of the day…I locked Eden in my bathroom.

(The title of this blog is suppose to be read in a seance sort of way, or singing type way. Smelly ghost, Smelly ghost…I think there might be a nursery rhyme about a ghost that I got this from, or I might just be strange.)

I don’t know about other people…but every once in a while dishes pile up, or our compost, and we get weird smells. One time a cooked yam skin got water on it and well, our house smelled dirty, and I mean in a gynecologist office dirty way…if you don’t understand, then well, I don’t want to get into details. Earlier in the day while doing dishes water had spilled and the food for the compost on the counter got wet. I didn’t think much of it until we got home.When we came home it just smelled. We looked and sniffed around and figured out it was the compost and more specifically a yam skin. I think we just threw that compost away…the smell had tainted it for us. We orange cleaned the counter and burned the salt city candle I had just bought. Boy am I glad I bought it, within minutes our house was filled with the lovely aroma of orchard peach and not well…the gynecologist office.

Anyways. I find that we get weird smells every once in a while. Like after Jon makes coleslaw. If left over cabbage pieces hang around too long, or dishes get soaked that have cabbage on them, it can get a little funky in the kitchen. Well, he made some this Sunday for our extended family FHE, but had cleaned up pretty well. Monday our kitchen smelled weird…just a subtle weird. We had dishes to do but Jon did them Monday night for me since my finger was still sensitive and healing. Still Tuesday I would walk past this certain area and it had a scent to it. Well I did dishes again on Wednesday and I found the culprit, our soaking bread pan. It wasn’t like a blow you away bad smell, just yucky and it made me a little nauseous. I cleaned it with steaming hot water and yet I still smelled that faint funk on it. Jon says it smells fine…I think I know the stronger, unappetizing scent so I recognize it lingering on the pan. Jon also mentioned how he doesn’t smell certain things too closely, or foods. Like eggs. He doesn’t enjoy the close up smell of cooked eggs.
Well today I still have funky smells around my kitchen. There is definitely something rotten in my trash can, and then when I was switching the clothes from the washer to the dryer that area smelled weird. I thing since we have the drain right there for the washer,and the hole to clean the sewer that every once in a while it gets a little funky, though I’m not sure why. I also seem to have something strange in my kitchen still. At one point I thought it was the fridge, but I smelled it open and closed and it was fine, and that’s when I suspected the washer. It just seems to be this traveling smell….and no I don’t smell it right now while I’m typing…only in my kitchen. So that’s my haunting this Halloween….a smelly ghost that lives in my kitchen.

My mom made three nursing blankets for both our girls. They had many uses because besides using it to cover me while nursing we’d swaddle them, use it to keep the sun out of the girls eyes in the car, and use it as a signal of sleeping. With Eden I’d cover her car seat and with Lilah she would just cuddle up to it. We wait until they’re over a year old before we let them sleep with the blankets though because of suffocation risks obviously…though they are still there.  Lilah nearly always has her blanket with her while she’s around the house.  Eden caught on to this and would like to play and cuddle into Lilah’s so we’d get Eden her blanket and she’d cuddle into hers and that made Lilah happy. Recently we started letting Eden sleep with a blanket. She now always has a blanket with her and she always wants one to cuddle while you sing to her before her nap. She is now very protective of her blanket. I covered Lilah with it earlier today while playing and Eden threw a fit and took it away. Their blankets is the one thing they don’t have to share, so we let them be possessive of it. I just think it’s funny the transformation she’s had for wanting her blankets since we’ve let her sleep with one. It’s like she knew before that she couldn’t be too attached because we’d take it away at nap time…but now she is attached to her blankets and there is no taking it away. Of course she has three so we rotate them…but so far she’s only had one to drag around. I should rotate it so she doesn’t get too attached to it that she won’t let me wash it.
It’s also funny how quickly she starts mimicking certain things. Lilah was jumping on the bed by just kicking her feet out and doing a sitting position. Eden would stand on the bed walk around and then sit. It was just cute to see her catch onto what Lilah was doing. I love watching my children grow. It was fun to see Lilah mimic me, but I love watching Eden mimic Lilah. It’s a good thing that Eden has a good role model…at least for now, and I hope it stays that way.

My sister Kristi does pampered chef and she had a stop and shop to attend Friday. It’s where they have several of the home businesses, like pampered chef, or candles or tastefully simple, so a person could come and buy and do Christmas shopping type things. I was babysitting for her, Howie is 6, Katy is 4, and Adrienne is 7 months..I think. Well Adrienne had been kinda fussy starting around 5:30. I tried feeding her a bottle and she wasn’t liking it so I I tried feeding her peaches and she didn’t like those. I gave her some cheerios and those seems to occupy her. While she was occupied I was fixing dinner. I had a pizza in the oven and I was going to saute some summer squash and zucchini to supplement Jon’s and my dinner. Adrienne started getting fussy while I was cutting up the onion and was getting the veggies washed. I was using my pampered chef slice and grate, essentially a slicer, and I was trying to get Adrienne’s attention because she was crying and fussing when I cut my right ring finger. It was pretty bloody and it was around 6:00. I was extra annoyed because Jon wasn’t home. He had ended up working late and forgot to call and didn’t have the cell. So here I was with a bleeding finger, an upset baby and no husband. Since I had no husband I had no car so that left me with no way to get to a doctors or quick care. I was annoyed, worried, and frustrated that I wasn’t paying attention to the dang summer squash. I called Kristi and she came to get her kids, she got here right after Jon. Jon got home at 6:23 and I gave him Adrienne, she fell asleep on him in about three minutes. Jon didn’t want me driving because our car is a stick, so I need two hands to drive. I think I could have pulled it off, but while I went to the bathroom Jon got Eden packed up and Lilah ready and we all went. Luckily, I think, the quick care was open and in total it took about an hour. They didn’t give me stitches, or even put the dermabond on, according to the doctor my wound needs to be dry and not bleeding. After he clean it out I started bleeding again, so he couldn’t put it on. I think he just didn’t want to use it because it was superficial, but I really wanted it so I could get on with life and not worry about the wound breaking open as easily. He put a huge gauze wrap on it and used band aids to keep it on. I tried to keep pressure on it, but it bleed a good little bit still. I also got my tetanus booster because I didn’t know when my last one was. The doctor made the comment that most people who cut themselves know when their last tetanus shot was. I’m guessing those people cut themselves regularly, or maybe I’m just one of the few who don’t have my immunization record memorized. Well, even if I didn’t get stitches or the fancy superglue, at least I got a tetanus shot and we know I won’t get lock jaw.

As I wiped down my stove this morning, which needs a much needed deep cleaning of the trays, I fantasized about having a day without my girls for cleaning. Then I thought it would be wonderful to have Jon home so he could do all the things that I have no clue what to do with. Like his memorabilia and the bills…I hate filing…I thought how wonderful it would be to get rid of things that we’re keeping for “just in case”.( like some lamps…and some baby clothes that I really didn’t have Eden wear…so I should probably just get rid of them. I just bought some space bags online…I’m now excited because I hope it will help with our space problem.)
My first day fantasy cleaning would be Jon and I organizing and down sizing. I’ve gotten rid of a lot of clothes since we’ve been in this house, but it’s not enough and I need to get rid of more shoes 🙁 Then as Lilah grows we have even more clothes to store. It’s just chaos. I want a day with my honey cleaning and organizing and then I can have the next day all to myself for the major cleaning and scrubbing down of the house. Jon hates it because I’m a mass cleaner. I get bothered or I just get an urge and I clean the whole bathroom along with the whole kitchen…I don’t do small things, like the sinks one day and the toilets the next. I figure if I’m gonna get gross then I might as well do it all. I also need to be better about upkeep and I always hope with a clean slate, as in when everything’s clean, then maybe I can stick to a schedule and do little things each day, and once a week do a big chore, like the tubs or mopping the floors. Anyways. That’s my fantasy…to have a day alone with my husband cleaning. Now I just need someone to pawn my children onto. 🙂

Maybe if I feel the house is organized and we find a place for everything…then I’ll be able to see that we have space for another child…even a boy…even if it brings a whole new area of storage into my life.

Together we have never been successful in getting everything organized, at least since we’ve been here…We get parts done and then life gets busy and things pile up again….I think the hardest problem is letting go…Jon has things he wants to keep and I have things I want to keep and then there are the things only one of us want to keep. I just want to find a back to my closet and a floor to my room. (It’s no that bad…but I want things to be better.) We’re not complete slobs…most of the time anyways. I like to think that on most days friends would feel comfortable in my home…but I want to be comfortable in my room…and that’s where much of the space problem is…in our room.
Sorry…I’m sure cleaning is boring…but this is one area of stress in my life. I feel a little powerless also because there are times I organize but feel I get no where…or I don’t know what to do with stuff, such as Jon’s things, or we need more dresser space…(have I said how we went from two to one dresser when we moved last year.) It’s just crazy and I don’t like feeling powerless to things…I mean they’re just things…I should be able to take control. I know the space bags aren’t a godsend…but I’m hoping it downsizes our clothing storage a little and blanket storage. I think that could help tons.

Today I was exhausted. I tried to sleeping during Curious George, but it never really is that restful to sleep with the girls awake. After lunch Lilah wanted to play with her beads and I have a rule of them being played with on our bed. (One so Eden can’t reach them, two they don’t roll all over the place.) Well I was playing with Lilah and the bed mojo must have gotten to me and I had to get some sleep. So I put the girls down at 2 and I went to get some shut eye on the couch. Our phone rang twice…one was an 866 number the second my was my sister Kristi, it was only 2:16 when I hung up with her, but frankly I felt that I had been a sleep for more like half an hour. Before I went back to dream land I didn’t hear Lilah but I did hear Eden…but there was not enough noise to keep me awake or wake me up. About four o’clock Lilah comes walking out, timidly with her blanket in her hands and thumb in her mouth. I ask her if she took a nap and she says yeah I took a nap. Because of the way she was walking I’m pretty sure she had not taken one…it was in the “are you going to put me back to bed?” walk…the one she does at night time when she gets out of bed. She also said Eden was awake and now I have two girls out and awake. I have no proof that they did take a nap and none that they didn’t since I didn’t check in on them before I fell asleep. I’m airing on that Lilah didn’t because Lilah rarely takes shorter than a 3 hour nap and she has been awake for 2 1/2 hours before falling asleep, plus as I said her timid walk when she came out. I think Eden may have, she seems rested, she usually makes a lot of noise if she’s awake, and her afternoon nap is only about an hour long. I’m still exhausted. I know that afternoon naps usually do not help me unless I get 2 1/2 -3 hours…I think that’s my sleep cycle length, and I hate when I’m so tired…I just sleep the day away…but sometimes it’s nice to just sleep the day away.
I suppose the good thing is we can hopefully put them down for bed early so I can cut Jon’s hair tonight.

This weekend we had much needed rain. It was wonderful. We had the windows open and our back door open to bring in the clean air and cool breeze. The one problem was our back door doesn’t have a screen. Later that night Lilah brought it to our attention about a fly flying around, but then as we looked closer in our bedroom we saw what seemed to be dozens on our ceiling (our back door is in our bedroom). Jon killed a total of 24 and we still had about 4-5 flying around. His stealth reflexes is was saved us from a horrible infestation, he was killing them with his bare hands, oh my hero… Anyways my definition of a infestation is more than 15 flies…and we had about 30. My new rule is to not have any door or window open that does not have a screen…no matter how nice the weather is.  It was a good down poor though and we even got hail. I love fall storms.

Jon thinks we may be on the down hill of Lilah’s temper tantrums. We’ll see as the week goes on. She still seems to cry when she gets upset  about Eden taking something rather then using words. She cries for a shorter periods, sometimes, when she’s trying to get something. I suppose I’m seeing a glimpse into the teenage years….crying and outbreaks for apparently no reason.  It’s just frustrating because I feel like she’s trying to manipulate the situation by crying….but then again Eden cries when she gets upset so she may just be mimicking her sister.  It’s just frustrating. I’m hoping they’re getting better.
Lilah also can’t wait for Halloween. My goodness. She wants nothing more to be an Incredible. I told her Anna was making the costume and she went on about Anna and how she’s sewing at her house. Then she wanted Anna to bring the costume over so she could have it. I will be happy once Halloween is over. It’s fun to see her get so excited but it wears thin on a mothers nerve. I think I’ll do something with the calendar. Put some scary sticker or face on Halloween and each day we cross off the days until it’s time, or put a sticker on. Just so it’s not quit as abstract as us telling her it’s a couple of weeks away, or it’s just not time yet. Eden’s going to be a purple Ladybug..essentially what Lilah was two Halloween’s ago. She’ll be our Eden bug.

I was able to give a good Relief Society lesson today. It’s was on Choosing Life or Death. Since most don’t have immediate thoughts or experiences I was able to get through all my quotes and each point that I wanted to make. Plus the women didn’t go off on any tangents. It’s frustrating when you want to interrupt someone or move on, but it’s hard to interrupt or ignore those who want to participate.

School is going well. I’m enjoying the easier classes, and working hard in the difficult ones. I was able to get an A on my first test for my Sex offenders class. Of course he went through each question in a round about way so I was able to focus on those things that I knew were on the test. The next test may be a little more difficult, but he does give us study sheets. It really is a perfect class for me. I love the challenge of learning the terms and understanding the deviant behaviors. I love that’s it’s suppose to be slightly difficult, but it’s interesting enough that it makes it worth it. The professor is also an interesting guy. He talks mostly in a monotone, but I like that he’s laid back but clearly states his expectations. Because of things in my past sex offending is interesting to me, it’s also such a prevalent thing that I feel that I’m also learning ways to protect my children and notice behaviors that sex offenders have, so I can be extra careful.