Is It Naptime Yet

I feel the need to talk a little about Lilah and some of the things she’s been up too, besides home school.

Lately, as in the last two or three weeks, though for four of those days we were gone,  Lilah’s taken to making her bed. Every morning she arranges the sheet to lay over her pillow as neat as a five year old can. For a time she would also place her blanket folded on her bed with her stuffed animal she had slept with. She was sleeping with Jon’s mouse for a while and then two weeks ago she started sleeping with Teddy, her bear. (We have such original names, Eden’s toy dog is Puppy.) I’m not sure where she got the idea to make her bed every morning because, well, we don’t. I’ve just never been much of a bed maker in my life and since it doesn’t bother Jon it doesn’t bother me, unless company comes over and then I pull up the sheet so it looks a little nicer.

I think her bed making is adorable.

Lilah is also obsessed with taking pictures. If I’m taking a picture she wants to take a picture. It’s fun and annoying at the same time. Eden also likes to take pictures now, which just makes it a little more difficult.

Here’s a picture Lilah took of Eden and me on the couch.

Here’s a picture Lilah took of Teddy on the floor. I just resized this one because I love the shadow in the corner because her finger was over the flash and her skirt and toes in the bottom of the frame.

Lastly Lilah has taken to making sure I have something to bring me comfort. A few nights ago Eden offered me Puppy to sleep with but in the end decided she wanted him for herself. Lilah then decided that I should have something to comfort me and gave me her ladybug blanket, which is her favorite of the two she has. She’s done this for a few nights now, except maybe one. Also yesterday on our drive to church she gave me her blanket, while she had Teddy for the drive. She’s also drawn me a picture of Teddy to bring me comfort.

The picture of Teddy. (I think he must have gotten a hold of some Just for Men hair dye and been in a very cold place since his extremities are blue.)

She’s a sweety pie sometimes.

Jon recently had his second annual physical. He’s in a lot better shape than last year. He’s lost 15 pounds, got his cholesterol in the good range and is basically a much healthier person.

He’s changed his diet, but has off days where he eats things that aren’t great for him, but that’s the point of off days. They’re days off from the normal healthy diet. He also exercises on our exercise bike pretty regularly. (Sometimes more regularly than others, but who am I to judge since I call bringing in the groceries exercise. Not really, but in reality that’s my biggest workout.)

I on the other hand do not get physicals, but I can tell you I don’t have breast cancer since my OBGYN is the only doctor I see once a year. Oh, I also don’t have glaucoma, well I may, but I’ll find out Thursday.
I have also gained 5 pounds since buying our scale earlier this year. Yuck.

In an effort to at least try to get healthier and happier I was glancing through some community classes at a rec center my girls will be taking dance at. (No more gymnastics. They want to do dance and we’re also changing rec centers. I’m using the dance class as potty training incentive and so far we’ve only had two accidents in two days.)

Back to the main topic. I was looking for a workout class to take but all the cardio kick and other classes were at night, or on Saturdays.  I didn’t want to take away from my evenings or Saturdays. I looked into the yoga classes and they had a morning class that wouldn’t cause me to need a babysitter since Jon would still be home getting ready for work. I knew my friend Sam took a yoga class at the rec center so I asked her about it. She wasn’t currently taking it but was wanting to sign up again for the session coming up. I decided to take the plunge and signed up for the class.

It’s not a quick weight loss class, like a cardio class would have been since I do zero exercising, but yoga does help with muscle strength and overall health.

The only problem, it’s at 6 am. Like, in the morning and I do not wake up before 7 am, and that’s only on very rare occasions.

I’ve been wanting to change my schedule. I’ve been wanting to wake up early and get my days started. I stay up late and sleep in to avoid house work and other things. I use sleeping as a escape mechanism from the things I don’t want to deal with.

So my new goal is to wake up early and begin my day so I’m ready for my children and they’re not occupying their time with TV or coloring while I catch up on sleep.

I hope to create a more harmonious home and happier place to be. I’m not crazy about housework, but I know I can keep a better home if I devote a little more time.   I often hit walls where I don’t know what to do with the papers that need to be filed or I can’t seem to find a place to store something.
I hate to throw away the girls artwork but I don’t have time to scan or take pictures of everything they draw, especially since we get anywhere from two to twelve pictures from them in a single day.  I get overwhelmed and bored with the gross monotonous jobs, like cleaning blinds and washing down walls that always look dirty.

I know if I successfully want to get up for my early Yoga class I’ll need to go to bed early and wake up early, even on the days I don’t have yoga. This will give me plenty of time to clean since there will be fewer television shows and blogs to take up my time. (I use TV and the computer as an escape mechanism also.) I may even venture to use our exercise bike or my pilates videos that are gathering dust. Waking up early will also give me more time with Jon and time to prepare for my days.

I admit I have a hard time waking up early because I also run out of things to do. I mean there are things to do, but I didn’t want to do them and if I get them done come the middle of the day I have no shows to distract me. I now feel I have more things to do and waking up early is the next solution so there is less rushing. I suppose I could try reading more. Now that I’ve been out of college for nearly two years I should be over my no more reading stage. I think I’ll begin with juvenile fictions that I never read in my youth.

I want to be happier, but sometimes a person doesn’t have the energy to take actions to be happier. It can be hard.
I’ve never had full blown depression, though I know I get down times.

As Fall approaches I want to begin anew. I want to have time to teach Lilah and Eden, rather then leave them to their own devices most of the time.

I don’t want to make excuses anymore. I want to lose weight and have a tidier home.

Most importantly I want to find more joy in my role as a mother. I have joy at times, but I know I can work on it.

I am happy, but I have my unhappy times and they overshadow the good. I want the good to overshadow the bad.

So here’s to waking up for a 6 am class three days a week. I have this next week to adjust to getting up early before the class begins, but I think I might sleep in a few more days. Afterall it’s my last week of sleep before I have to wake up because I’ve paid for a class.

I’m thinking of doing the blog to book thing. It’s a little pricey but for a personalized book of things I’ve written I think it’s totally worth it and then I will have a hard copy of my blog. How cool would that be for posterity?!

I’ve got a lot of posts under my belt, 569 including this one.
I would probably do a book for each year I’ve blogged, of course I started on Sept 2, 2005 so I may combine that with the year of 2006.

My fist step is to go back and reread everything I’ve written. I use spell check, because I am a terrible speller, but I wish they had grammar check.

Sometimes after I’ve posted something and I see a very obvious mistake I think, “Ugh, why didn’t anyone tell me I was such a nerd and horrible writer.” Then there are times when I use the wrong than/then or there/their, like I probably just did.

So feel free to correct my grammar or if I’ve added an odd word. Hopefully I’ll only have to read up to the first half of 2008 for my grammar check, and awkward sentence structure check.

The girls point out different vehicles while we’re driving. School buses are the favorite, city buses are common, delivery man trucks are also fun for them.

Today while entering the freeway I saw a school bus.

Me: “Look girls, to our right, there’s a school bus. Hurry we’re passing it.”
Lilah: “That’s the left.”
Me: “Oh, yeah. That is the left. It’s a good thing you know your directions.”

This is a classic Lacey mistake. For the life of me I cannot get my directions right. I get them correct about 65% of the time,  and the rest I just confuse and anger myself or the people I’m giving directions to.

Countless times I’ve told Jon “Go right” and I’m pointing to the left. I keep telling him that my hands are always correct. Then there are the times I’m not using my hands and I tell him the wrong direction and have to correct myself.  Lastly, there are the times I am telling him the correct direction and he asks me if I’m sure. “Of course I’m sure. I know my left  hand from my right.”  Sometimes.

I’m just glad Lilah has inherited Jon sense of direction, or at least knowledge of the right from the left. I actually have a better sense of direction when we’re driving. It just gets lost in translation.

I have too many pictures to look through so that’s gonna wait, but so I can remember parts of the trip I’m doing the journal post now.

Saturday was the day of the actual reunion. We got to my Aunt Pat and Uncle Don’s house fairly early, or around noon. My father has one whole brother and three half sisters and one half brother. I met a lot of my cousins, many of whom I never knew existed. Most of them are a little older than I, by at least eight years. Some have children just seven years younger than me. Most of them grew up in Idaho, Oregon, or Washington. Places we never visited since they’re so far, and for other reasons such as by the third day of traveling my father would be completely annoyed with all of us kids, there are six of us. I’m sure the thought of being in a car for that long was probably too much. I am slightly grateful because trips to Utah were hard enough on me. I had to sit up front between my parents in our station wagon, since I was the youngest and smallest, until I was around twelve.

Sharma, my cousin Don Jr.’s wife, kept the kids occupied with different crafts. They decorated a folder to put the crafts in, made bookmarks, necklaces, etc. After we ate she gave the kids bubbles and side walk chalk to occupy them. Then even later in the day she organized the egg run races for the kids and adults.
I lost.
Lilah participated in two races. One with all the kids and one with the six and younger children, since the older kids were winning a lot. For the first race they had to run the whole length of the yard. For the second race they only had to run half the length of the yard. She ran the whole length and one of the cousin’s child suggested she get an award for the extra effort, so she got a pen that had both blue and red ink to it.

Eden was doing her own thing for most of the day. She also hung out with Amarah, my Uncle Mike’s granddaughter who is just two weeks older than her. I have pictures of them trading bubbles. They were really cute. She did the second egg run and  lost like her mother.

Each family was in charge of a skit,  song, or some activity. My Uncle Don had a quiz which you matched the fact with a person from his family. We had the girls, and I helped, perform the Wheels on the Bus. (I was going to do Oh Hey Oh Hi Hello, but we needed the CD and the wheels song had actions and more people could join in so I thought it would take the pressure off. ) The girls did really well. I wish I would have had someone record it, but I forgot.
My aunt Mary’s family dance to the Village People’s YMCA. Aunt Marcia’s family did a little skit where a cousin was placing their family members pretending to be trees, birds, the sun etc, and called it the gathering of the nuts. My Aunt Cheryl and her daughter sang to a Judd’s song and Uncle Mike did karate, while two of his grandchildren were to shy to demonstrate with him.

We had Christmas in August so everyone brought an age and gender appropriate gift. My Uncle Don was in charge of that and wasn’t taking any initiative on what or how to trade gifts, so I took the initiative and got them organized for the different ages and genders. He says he’s a good supervisor, but I think he needs to work on how to motivate his workers.

I liked meeting all these new family members and the girls had fun, despite some clinginess they had towards me. I’m sure all the people didn’t help. We had around 26 adults and about 25 children under the age of 18. It was busy.

I felt a little like the odd one out. My cousins that are my age didn’t come up, and everyone else was older than me or younger by at least seven years.

Sunday morning we ate breakfast at my Uncle Don’s house and then headed over to the cemetery where my grandma is buried. It was wet from a morning rain and the mosquitoes were out so after a few pictures  my mom and I packed us and the girls back into the car. I had to keep swatting mosquitoes off of Eden’s legs and Lilah had one land on her finger. I got two out of my three bites that morning and luckily the girls were never bit enough to get a bug bite.

We traveled back to Ely on Sunday. We followed my Uncle Mike to Twin Falls, ID and ate Taco Bell with him, my Aunt Robin, and their three grand kids. My Aunt Robin had a new puppy, some very small breed so it was only 4-6 lbs. Lilah adored the dog and since they shared a balcony with us at the hotel so we snuck over there and held the puppy at night. Eden warmed up to the puppy, but since it still liked to nip and chew on people she was weary of her.

My dad hurt his ankle as we were leaving the hotel Sunday morning so we stayed at Andrea’s house while my parents got a ground floor room at the motel in Ely, our original room was upstairs and the only room that had three beds to it.  Eden was not happy and wanted to  go to the hotel. She eventually got over it and was fine sharing a room with Zarina and Lilah.

I stayed up talking with Andrea and Brien till nearly midnight and then slept on their couch. We all got up a little after 8 am, or when Zarina started making noises, and my parents showed up shortly after that.

After getting fed and ready to go we stopped and fed the ducks, geese and swan at a fountain area in Ely. The girls love feeding the ducks.

We took the long way home through Caliente, opposed to going through Lund. We stopped and ate lunch and then let the girls watch another movie for the drive home.

We got in around 4:30 and Eden fell asleep right as we got to town. The little stinker did not want to take a nap. I had her wait 20 minutes before she could draw after the movie was done and since she stayed awake I gave her the items to draw with and then magazines to look at. She was being stubborn, but maybe it was because she missed daddy.

Lilah told Jon lots of things that happened and then once Eden was awake she also told Daddy what we did on the trip.

I think I’m good for any long car rides for a while.

I’ll probably give more trip details like Wednesday or tomorrow, since all I need to do is grocery shopping and laundry. Jon cleaned  the kitchen and allowed me to leave him with a  sink full of dishes even though I had time to do them before I left on Thursday. He’s the best husband ever.  Of course he just watched movies, scanned pictured for various projects and had one working engagement for a gentleman he’s worked for on and off since right after we were married.

I just want to say I am happy to be home because my daughters got pretty clingy this weekend and I am so looking forward to a girls night with Anna this Thursday. We’re going to the farmers market and they’ll have a Jazz band at the Cafe there at the Springs Preserve, both are free, except the produce you buy. I was thinking I might take the girls, but this weekend sealed the deal that Mama Bear needs time away from her cubs.

They travel fairly well, but towards the end of the trip they started shutting down to other people, or acting shy, in which they were very talkative and normal towards the same people at the beginning of the trip.  I am just happy to be home and able to hand them off to Jon. It’s not that my parents wouldn’t help, because they did very much so, but when the girls were needy I was the only one they wanted so it made things a little stressful.

Jon’s now getting them ready for bed, a little late, but he’s still getting them ready for bed and I’m here at the computer blogging.

He’s the best husband ever.