June 2021 (random, Utah)
2 years ago
Monday, May 21, 2012
The Morning After
Well, I didn't succeed in not nursing last night, but at least putting Becca to bed without it helped a ton. She only woke up 3 times last night! And that is an improvement! She woke up around 12:00, 3:00, and 5:00, and it's 7:08 right now and she's still asleep. Love it! I know if I keep working at it, it'll only get better.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Sleep Training and Scripture Study
We've reached that point that I'm so tired that I'm basically a living zombie. I have dark shadows under my eyes, and I don't think I've ever really gotten those before. Brian even remarked today that I look tired, and being a man, he doesn't usually notice things like that. (Example 1: When Ethan was a baby and he was up a lot one night, Brian said the next morning, "Wow, Ethan must have slept through the night! I didn't hear him at all." In Brian's defense, since he's not the one getting up with the babies, his ears aren't tuned to their cries, so he usually just sleeps through it. And Example 2: Again, when Ethan was a baby, he was up all night and in the morning Brian said, "You know, with you getting in and out of bed to get up with Ethan all night long, I did not sleep well last night." The funny thing about that one is that he didn't realize just what he was saying until he had said it, and he felt really bad once he realized it.)
So I'm tired. Becca is up a lot at night. She usually goes down around 9:30, then she's up around 11:30, then 1:30-ish, then sometime around 3:00, then she's on a pretty set schedule of waking up at 4:30, 5:00-ish, then just before 6:00. Yeah, you can probably understand why I'm so tired. It's gotten to the point that I sleep half the night nursing her in the recliner in half-hour long increments, then I wake up, put her in the crib, then go back to bed until the next waking, where we start the cycle all over again. I'm so tired that I've been too tired to even try to break the cycle, which has just made everything worse. And that's the whole problem, really. Rebecca thinks that the best way to fall asleep is by nursing, and even though it's not the only way that she knows how to fall asleep, it is her preferred way to fall asleep, and now it's gotten to be so frequent through the night that it's time to teach her to fall asleep on her own.
The other problem that she has is that she goes to bed too late for a baby, but I think that's just because she inherited Brian's night owl gene, because even when she was a newborn, she didn't really hit her night-time sleep until around 10:30.
So tonight was the official start to getting Becca to sleep longer through the night. I started by beginning the whole bed time routine earlier, because she really should be going to bed before 9:30 pm. I got her in her night-time diaper and pajamas around 7:20, then cuddled and nursed her for a while, which will hopefully be the last nursing until tomorrow morning. We'll see if I stick to it! Then I rocked her and sang our bedtime songs: "I Am a Child of God," "Jesus Once was a Little Child," "I'm Trying to be Like Jesus," "Teach Me to Walk in the Light", and the "Go to Bed" song. (Notice how the order of these songs are even "sleep-deprived mom" friendly. "Jesus Once was a Little Child" ends with, "try, try, try," which leads into "I'm Trying to be Like Jesus." That song ends with, "for these are the things Jesus taught," hence "Teach Me to Walk in the Light." I came up with this order when Marcus was a baby, and now matter how tired I am I can always make it through. Usually.
Anyway. After we sang and rocked, I put Becca in her crib and used the sleep cue, "It's time to go to bed." (Right now that sleep cue doesn't mean anything to her, but hopefully it will soon!) She wanted to play in her crib, so I let her. I used the opportunity to catch up on my scripture reading and browsed Pinterest on my phone until she got upset and started to cry. Then I went and picked her up, said "Mama's here," rocked her for 30 seconds, then laid her back down, saying some form of "Time for bed." And then we did that over and over again, sometimes with her being happy for a few minutes, sometimes with her not being happy to be laid down, until she finally fell asleep just before 9:00. The rule I give myself when I do this is that I don't pick her up until she's pulled herself to standing and reaches for me. (I was standing beside the crib the whole time.) I do this, because I think - hope! - that it tires the baby out faster to have to pull themselves up to standing in order to be held.
I didn't say anything but our cue words - "Mama's here," and "Time for bed" - the whole time, unless you count the times that Alyssa or Ethan tried sneaking in the room and I had to whisper, "Please leave. I'm getting Becca to sleep," but I don't think Becca noticed any of those.
And now we get to the whole point of this long, winded post: that blessed moment when I laid her down, and she stayed laying down. She pumped her arms up and down a couple of times, and then all of a sudden, in just about a matter of 5 or so seconds, her body slowed down, and she started to drift off to sleep, and then in about 10 more seconds, she was still and had gone completely to sleep. It was the sweetest thing to watch, and even better, it meant that all that hard work paid off, and hopefully by doing this we'll both end up getting better sleep at night.
(FYI: a lot of my philosophy and strategies come from Elizabeth Pantley's book, "the No Cry Sleep Solution." I love that book!)
And now, to make this post even longer, we'll talk about my scripture study. Really, though, I'm contemplating staying up all night, because I think it will be easier to deal with Becca waking up if I'm already awake and not groggy from having to pull myself out of bed. I'm in no hurry to go to bed, so I might as well keep typing. I'm also still thinking that the edges of the school room walls need another coat of paint, so I might do that also. Who knows?
So I've mentioned before how our Stake Presidency has challenged, or rather "encouraged," us to read the Book of Mormon every day this year. I've been doing fabulous at following my plan to be finished reading through the Book of Mormon by the end of June, although I did miss one day - the Sunday of General Conference, because my daily schedule was completely thrown off, and I didn't even realize I had missed it until the next day. Then, a few weeks ago, I had to take my phone into the shop to get the microphone screen replaced, so I was without it for a few days.
It's funny that being without my phone was such a big deal, but it really was. I always read my scriptures when I put Becca down for her morning nap, and I read on my phone, because it's a lot easier to hold a phone while rocking a baby than an actual book. The first day without my phone I put off scripture reading until I went to bed, but by then I was tired (sleep deprived - remember?) and I only read a couple of verses, instead of a whole chapter. The next day I just didn't make it a priority, and I think I read a verse or two, and then the next day I don't even think I read at all. It amazes me that in just a couple of days, something that had been a regular and important part of my routine for almost 5 months, suddenly became unimportant. I went three or four days last week either not reading at all or just reading a few verses. I've spent the last couple of days trying to get caught up to where I should be to be on track to finish by the end of next month, and I'm almost to where I'm supposed to be.
It just amazes me to look back and see the changes in my attitude and my patience level when I was either reading or not reading the scriptures. (Although that could have been affected by the whole sleep deprived thing, too.) I've finally truly realized just how important it is to get that daily feasting on the words of Christ, because I could feel the spirit of the Holy Ghost lessen on the days I didn't read. I would wonder why I was so grumpy and short-tempered, and I would realize, "I really need to read the scriptures." And now that I'm hopefully back to reading regularly, I feel so much better. I'm still sleep deprived. I'm still incredibly tired, and I probably have more right than anybody to be grumpy and short-tempered, but tonight I was able to lovingly get my baby to sleep (by herself!), then have family scripture study with the kids (by myself, because Brian had fallen asleep on the family room floor - guess I'm not the only one that's tired), and then tuck those kids into bed - all without losing my temper, or even feeling the urge to lose my temper. And I attribute those successes to the added happiness and patience that the Holy Ghost brings to me when I choose to bring the Spirit into our home by reading the scriptures.
(I also read this article while Becca was playing in her crib tonight. One of my friends pinned it on Pinterest. She pinned it to be board titled, "a beautiful me," and I love that she's trying to be beautiful on the inside as well as the outside. The article has guidelines for great scripture study, but what I really love about it was the part about how our brains are becoming hard-wired to respond to Facebook and email and blogs and such, and we need to spend a sufficient amount of time in the scriptures each day to re-wire our brains to think spiritually.)
Might as well make the post even longer.
In other news:
1. We went on an ice cream picnic with the Hollidays at Howard Amon Park, and we ended up throwing all our kids together in one house with one baby sitter while Brian and I and Dave and Adrienne went to go see "the Avengers." We had so much fun at the park, and even though going to the movie was incredibly last-minute and definitely a bit of a crazy thing to do, it was so worth it. It was an awesome movie! Of the super hero movies of these characters, I've only seen the Iron Man movies, so now I need to get caught up with "Thor," and "the Hulk," and "Captain America," and then watch "the Avengers" again when it comes out on DVD.
Edited to add: What do people who stay up all night do? It's only 11:10 and I'm bored out of my mind. I don't want to paint, because if Becca wakes up I'll have to leave a wet paint brush. I started to upload our pictures to one of our picture blogs, but I'm tired, and that just wasn't exciting enough to keep my attention. I'm going to bed.
So I'm tired. Becca is up a lot at night. She usually goes down around 9:30, then she's up around 11:30, then 1:30-ish, then sometime around 3:00, then she's on a pretty set schedule of waking up at 4:30, 5:00-ish, then just before 6:00. Yeah, you can probably understand why I'm so tired. It's gotten to the point that I sleep half the night nursing her in the recliner in half-hour long increments, then I wake up, put her in the crib, then go back to bed until the next waking, where we start the cycle all over again. I'm so tired that I've been too tired to even try to break the cycle, which has just made everything worse. And that's the whole problem, really. Rebecca thinks that the best way to fall asleep is by nursing, and even though it's not the only way that she knows how to fall asleep, it is her preferred way to fall asleep, and now it's gotten to be so frequent through the night that it's time to teach her to fall asleep on her own.
The other problem that she has is that she goes to bed too late for a baby, but I think that's just because she inherited Brian's night owl gene, because even when she was a newborn, she didn't really hit her night-time sleep until around 10:30.
So tonight was the official start to getting Becca to sleep longer through the night. I started by beginning the whole bed time routine earlier, because she really should be going to bed before 9:30 pm. I got her in her night-time diaper and pajamas around 7:20, then cuddled and nursed her for a while, which will hopefully be the last nursing until tomorrow morning. We'll see if I stick to it! Then I rocked her and sang our bedtime songs: "I Am a Child of God," "Jesus Once was a Little Child," "I'm Trying to be Like Jesus," "Teach Me to Walk in the Light", and the "Go to Bed" song. (Notice how the order of these songs are even "sleep-deprived mom" friendly. "Jesus Once was a Little Child" ends with, "try, try, try," which leads into "I'm Trying to be Like Jesus." That song ends with, "for these are the things Jesus taught," hence "Teach Me to Walk in the Light." I came up with this order when Marcus was a baby, and now matter how tired I am I can always make it through. Usually.
Anyway. After we sang and rocked, I put Becca in her crib and used the sleep cue, "It's time to go to bed." (Right now that sleep cue doesn't mean anything to her, but hopefully it will soon!) She wanted to play in her crib, so I let her. I used the opportunity to catch up on my scripture reading and browsed Pinterest on my phone until she got upset and started to cry. Then I went and picked her up, said "Mama's here," rocked her for 30 seconds, then laid her back down, saying some form of "Time for bed." And then we did that over and over again, sometimes with her being happy for a few minutes, sometimes with her not being happy to be laid down, until she finally fell asleep just before 9:00. The rule I give myself when I do this is that I don't pick her up until she's pulled herself to standing and reaches for me. (I was standing beside the crib the whole time.) I do this, because I think - hope! - that it tires the baby out faster to have to pull themselves up to standing in order to be held.
I didn't say anything but our cue words - "Mama's here," and "Time for bed" - the whole time, unless you count the times that Alyssa or Ethan tried sneaking in the room and I had to whisper, "Please leave. I'm getting Becca to sleep," but I don't think Becca noticed any of those.
And now we get to the whole point of this long, winded post: that blessed moment when I laid her down, and she stayed laying down. She pumped her arms up and down a couple of times, and then all of a sudden, in just about a matter of 5 or so seconds, her body slowed down, and she started to drift off to sleep, and then in about 10 more seconds, she was still and had gone completely to sleep. It was the sweetest thing to watch, and even better, it meant that all that hard work paid off, and hopefully by doing this we'll both end up getting better sleep at night.
(FYI: a lot of my philosophy and strategies come from Elizabeth Pantley's book, "the No Cry Sleep Solution." I love that book!)
And now, to make this post even longer, we'll talk about my scripture study. Really, though, I'm contemplating staying up all night, because I think it will be easier to deal with Becca waking up if I'm already awake and not groggy from having to pull myself out of bed. I'm in no hurry to go to bed, so I might as well keep typing. I'm also still thinking that the edges of the school room walls need another coat of paint, so I might do that also. Who knows?
So I've mentioned before how our Stake Presidency has challenged, or rather "encouraged," us to read the Book of Mormon every day this year. I've been doing fabulous at following my plan to be finished reading through the Book of Mormon by the end of June, although I did miss one day - the Sunday of General Conference, because my daily schedule was completely thrown off, and I didn't even realize I had missed it until the next day. Then, a few weeks ago, I had to take my phone into the shop to get the microphone screen replaced, so I was without it for a few days.
It's funny that being without my phone was such a big deal, but it really was. I always read my scriptures when I put Becca down for her morning nap, and I read on my phone, because it's a lot easier to hold a phone while rocking a baby than an actual book. The first day without my phone I put off scripture reading until I went to bed, but by then I was tired (sleep deprived - remember?) and I only read a couple of verses, instead of a whole chapter. The next day I just didn't make it a priority, and I think I read a verse or two, and then the next day I don't even think I read at all. It amazes me that in just a couple of days, something that had been a regular and important part of my routine for almost 5 months, suddenly became unimportant. I went three or four days last week either not reading at all or just reading a few verses. I've spent the last couple of days trying to get caught up to where I should be to be on track to finish by the end of next month, and I'm almost to where I'm supposed to be.
It just amazes me to look back and see the changes in my attitude and my patience level when I was either reading or not reading the scriptures. (Although that could have been affected by the whole sleep deprived thing, too.) I've finally truly realized just how important it is to get that daily feasting on the words of Christ, because I could feel the spirit of the Holy Ghost lessen on the days I didn't read. I would wonder why I was so grumpy and short-tempered, and I would realize, "I really need to read the scriptures." And now that I'm hopefully back to reading regularly, I feel so much better. I'm still sleep deprived. I'm still incredibly tired, and I probably have more right than anybody to be grumpy and short-tempered, but tonight I was able to lovingly get my baby to sleep (by herself!), then have family scripture study with the kids (by myself, because Brian had fallen asleep on the family room floor - guess I'm not the only one that's tired), and then tuck those kids into bed - all without losing my temper, or even feeling the urge to lose my temper. And I attribute those successes to the added happiness and patience that the Holy Ghost brings to me when I choose to bring the Spirit into our home by reading the scriptures.
(I also read this article while Becca was playing in her crib tonight. One of my friends pinned it on Pinterest. She pinned it to be board titled, "a beautiful me," and I love that she's trying to be beautiful on the inside as well as the outside. The article has guidelines for great scripture study, but what I really love about it was the part about how our brains are becoming hard-wired to respond to Facebook and email and blogs and such, and we need to spend a sufficient amount of time in the scriptures each day to re-wire our brains to think spiritually.)
Might as well make the post even longer.
In other news:
1. We went on an ice cream picnic with the Hollidays at Howard Amon Park, and we ended up throwing all our kids together in one house with one baby sitter while Brian and I and Dave and Adrienne went to go see "the Avengers." We had so much fun at the park, and even though going to the movie was incredibly last-minute and definitely a bit of a crazy thing to do, it was so worth it. It was an awesome movie! Of the super hero movies of these characters, I've only seen the Iron Man movies, so now I need to get caught up with "Thor," and "the Hulk," and "Captain America," and then watch "the Avengers" again when it comes out on DVD.
Edited to add: What do people who stay up all night do? It's only 11:10 and I'm bored out of my mind. I don't want to paint, because if Becca wakes up I'll have to leave a wet paint brush. I started to upload our pictures to one of our picture blogs, but I'm tired, and that just wasn't exciting enough to keep my attention. I'm going to bed.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Ditching School for Mushrooms
Yesterday morning Brian and I decided to keep the kids home from school, load them in the car, and drive to the Blue Mountains to go mushrooming. We got doughnuts from Viera's Bakery to start the morning, which, in my opinion, is a very fun way to start the morning. Brian and Ethan both found mushrooms within thirty seconds of stepping out of the car, and after I had Becca dressed warmly, I found two more after taking about ten steps. Alyssa was the one who found a group of them all in the same area. It was so fun to hear her yell, "Found one! Two. Three! Four! Five! Six! SEVEN, EIGHT, NINE!!!"
We wandered through the trees near Brian's parent's cabin for about four hours, then stopped at the Oasis in Milton Freewater (Muddy Frogwater) for dinner, then headed home. The best part about the Oasis, besides its yummy, yummy food, is that it has a treasure box for the kids to pick a prize from. It's filled with all sorts of goodies from the Dollar Tree, and each of our kids ate every single bite of their dinner to be able to pick a prize. That was nice.
In other news:
1. Brian bought "The Phantom Tollbooth" for Alyssa to read, and she is loving it. She read it on the way home yesterday, and she kept taking breaks to tell us about all the funny things in it.
2. Our big backyard projects for the year are almost done. We planted some arborvitaes behind the rose bushes, to help add a backdrop for the pergola. I'm still dreaming about the fountain Marcus and I saw at Lowes, but I don't know if we have enough money in the budget for it. We have one more flower bed that we've gotten edging stones for that we need to work on, but even when we finish it, we probably won't plant anything in it until next year. Today I'd like to get outside and take the dirt that piled underneath the pergola and put them into our boxed planters, finish putting the ground cloth around the arborvitaes, and then take pictures of it all. It's almost all ready to just sit back and enjoy for the summer.
3. Our other big project, or really, my big project is the school room. I put a second and third layer of yellow paint on the walls last week, and now I think I need to go around the edges one more time. I can't tell if the faint blue coloring is because it needs another coat, or if it's just a reflection of the blue painter's tape. Anyway, I'm excited to get some stripes put in, but I don't know exactly when that will happen. Painting with a baby is tough. I don't normally let my painting projects sit for so long. I really want to get things finished before school get's out, because I have some fabulous ideas for summer school. I have service zones (chores) planned for the kids to do each day, I have a ton of ideas to put in the kids' work boxes that are both education (math worksheets, writing assignments, etc.) and fun (have Mom read a book to you, play a game on the computer for fifteen minutes, etc.), and I have ideas on how to spend our afternoons like going to the library or going swimming or going to the park. My plan is to do summer school for June and July as kind of a practice run for home school in the fall, and then we'll take August off completely.
We wandered through the trees near Brian's parent's cabin for about four hours, then stopped at the Oasis in Milton Freewater (Muddy Frogwater) for dinner, then headed home. The best part about the Oasis, besides its yummy, yummy food, is that it has a treasure box for the kids to pick a prize from. It's filled with all sorts of goodies from the Dollar Tree, and each of our kids ate every single bite of their dinner to be able to pick a prize. That was nice.
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| Alyssa took a picture of Becca and me, because I'm always the one taking the pictures. |
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| Ethan saw that I was taking a picture of him, so he did a strong man pose. He was also hopping around, which made capturing the strong man pose difficult. |
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| Three of the four |
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| Number Four |
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| Alyssa pointing to a mushroom she found |
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| Here's some of the mushrooms that Alyssa found in a group. |
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| Can you find the morels? There's two in this picture. |
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| Brian kept sharing that blueberry sucker with Rebecca. She loved it! |
In other news:
1. Brian bought "The Phantom Tollbooth" for Alyssa to read, and she is loving it. She read it on the way home yesterday, and she kept taking breaks to tell us about all the funny things in it.
2. Our big backyard projects for the year are almost done. We planted some arborvitaes behind the rose bushes, to help add a backdrop for the pergola. I'm still dreaming about the fountain Marcus and I saw at Lowes, but I don't know if we have enough money in the budget for it. We have one more flower bed that we've gotten edging stones for that we need to work on, but even when we finish it, we probably won't plant anything in it until next year. Today I'd like to get outside and take the dirt that piled underneath the pergola and put them into our boxed planters, finish putting the ground cloth around the arborvitaes, and then take pictures of it all. It's almost all ready to just sit back and enjoy for the summer.
3. Our other big project, or really, my big project is the school room. I put a second and third layer of yellow paint on the walls last week, and now I think I need to go around the edges one more time. I can't tell if the faint blue coloring is because it needs another coat, or if it's just a reflection of the blue painter's tape. Anyway, I'm excited to get some stripes put in, but I don't know exactly when that will happen. Painting with a baby is tough. I don't normally let my painting projects sit for so long. I really want to get things finished before school get's out, because I have some fabulous ideas for summer school. I have service zones (chores) planned for the kids to do each day, I have a ton of ideas to put in the kids' work boxes that are both education (math worksheets, writing assignments, etc.) and fun (have Mom read a book to you, play a game on the computer for fifteen minutes, etc.), and I have ideas on how to spend our afternoons like going to the library or going swimming or going to the park. My plan is to do summer school for June and July as kind of a practice run for home school in the fall, and then we'll take August off completely.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
100% Adorable
When Rebecca is older, and people end up saying to her, "How cute are you?" I want to teach her to respond with, "100%!" Just like any other mother, I think that my kids are the cutest things that walk (or crawl) the earth, and I am just loving Rebecca's smiles and laughs, and the way she's starting to play games with us. She is just so filled with happiness. I love it!
Here's a quick photo shoot we did during breakfast this morning.
Here's a quick photo shoot we did during breakfast this morning.
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| Here she is kicking her feet. You can see a little bit of movement on the left foot. |
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| And here she is doing her "Hallelujah!" hands. When she flaps her arms like this lately, we've been saying, "Praise the Lord!" or "Hallelujah!" |
Friday, May 11, 2012
Starship McGee
I don't know why they call it "Starship McGee." The kids haven't told me this, but Starship McGee has something to do with the program they do and the awards they give out each month. This month the award was for caring, and Ethan came home on Friday with a note inviting us to watch him receive that award. On Mondays I go to help in Ethan's classroom by putting their homework packets together, so it worked out great that I was already there for the assembly. I usually go in at nine, when I drop off the kids, and I'm done by nine thirty, which is when the assembly was scheduled for. My mom watches Marcus and Rebecca at this time, but when she heard about Ethan's reward, she said she wanted to go, too, so we all headed to McGee on Monday morning.
Fast forward to four o'clock, when Alyssa came home ans asked, "Mom, why did you leave? I got an award." What?!? No one told me she was getting an award! I guess in her class it's a surprise. I felt so bad that I wasn't there to cheer her on when we made such a big deal about supporting Ethan. She completely understood, though, and in the end it didn't bother her at all.
I made sure to get a picture of Alyssa and Ethan together (a couple of days later) because I really am so proud of them, and I think it's cool that brother and sister received the same award for "caring for others" on the same day.
In other news:
1. We have our driveway back! Way back a couple of months ago we got sixteen yard (a lot!) of potato dirt dumped on our driveway. We used this dirt to fill the raised flower bed we're putting in behind the pergola. We've been done with the dirt for a few weeks now, and we tried to give it away, but it just wasn't working. So yesterday I put a "Free Dirt" ad on Criagslist, and by the end of the day, our driveway was clean!
2. I also spent most of yesterday outside finishing up the flower bed behind the pergola. Marcus and I, and then Ethan and I put the ground cloth down and spread a bunch of bark around the rose bushes we put in. We also saw a beautiful fountain at Lowes that I would love to put back there.
3. I'm losing weight! I'm ten pounds away from my goal weight! Other than this week I've been doing thirty minutes on the elliptical each morning while watching "24" and I think that's been helping a lot. It helps because it burns those extra calories, but it also helps because it has now gone from, "Oh, I exercised this morning, so I can eat what I want," to "I exercised this morning, do I really want to waste all that effort on one cookie?" (Actually, sometimes I say, "Yes. Yes I do.") I haven't been exercising in the mornings this week, because I'm right in the middle of painting the school room, and the elliptical is piled in the middle of the room with everything else.
4. Speaking of the school room: It's gonna be awesome! Tomorrow we're putting the second coat of yellow on the walls, then next week after that dries enough, I'll add stripes and a tree, and then after that come the curtains (I love the fabric I got for it!) and the pictures and quotes. I'm so excited! It's going to be so great to have a fun and happy place to do our school work next year.
Saturday, May 05, 2012
Svenborg Pellsdotter
Brian and I went to the temple last night, because our friend was going through for the first time. It was our first trip to the temple since I last went when I was pregnant with Becca. It was so nice to go through again and to be there with a few of our friends from the ward. The woman I went through for was named Svenborg Pellsdotter, and she was born in Sweden in 1754. I memorized this all because I was so fascinated. I'll tell you why. If you look at her last name (Pellsdotter) - guess what her dad's name was. Pell! Plus her mom's name was Truen (which I think is so pretty, and might end up being used for a character in my book) and Truen's dad's name was Trued, so her full name was Truen Truedsdotter. Seriously. I know that the names Johnson and Thompson and others like that originate from being named after your dad, but it all happened so long ago that you never meet anyone with the last name of Johnson whose dad's name is really John. (This is also probably because most parents wouldn't do this to their son: John Johnson.) I just though it was so cool to see this practice in action.
When I was in college I took a linguistics class that talked about the origins of language and words and dialects and such. We also learned about gutteral stops, and that was fun. I don't know exactly why, but I just loved that class. I loved it so much that I "geeked out" at the temple and stared at the name card long enough to memorize all the names, places, and dates.
In other news:
1. Sadie tried to kill herself last week by eating some snail and slug bait. We didn't even know it until she started acting strange by standing in her cage, shaking and panting. She also didn't want to lay down, walked hunkered down, almost like an army crawl, and didn't use the bathroom even though she basically ran out to it. It was then that I called Brian and he said to look around the yard for something she might have eaten, and I found the bag of snail bait that she must have bit open. (There was an awful lot of "should have's" that we felt that day: should have put the bag away, should have put Sadie's bathroom fence back up after carting dirt through, etc.) I never thought I would be one to take an animal to the vet for something that I thought would be expensive, especially when I thought that she would die anyway, but I just couldn't watch her suffer like that. She was obviously in a lot of pain.
So I dropped off the kids at my sister's house and took her to the vet. Brian joined us there when he got off work, which ended up being about fifteen minutes after I got there. The vet was pretty busy, so we were still waiting when Brian arrived, and he was a little upset, and he was also more affected emotionally by Sadie's state than I was. There was a nice woman sitting near us that I had visited with a little bit, and she offered to say a prayer for Sadie. She put a hand on Sadie's head and said a very powerful prayer. Her faith, and especially her willingness to share her faith, amazed me. I do believe that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the only true and complete organized church on the earth, but I don't think that that makes the faith of other religions wrong. This woman had a strong testimony of God, and I felt His spirit while she prayed.
Anyway, Sadie spent a couple of nights at the vet. It didn't cost nearly as much as I thought it would. And Sadie is now home with us and acting like her normal puppy self.
2. Brian and I took a break from the never ending backyard project (Thanks to Brian and our friend John we now have water and electricity back by the pergola.) and we painted the ceiling of the school room blue. Yes, blue. I've got some big plans for the school room, and I can't wait to see it all come together. I really hope it looks as good as it does in my head! I'm planning on doing a modified home school for summer school this year, so I'm trying to get it all finished by the time the kids get out for the summer. Next week: I'm painting the walls yellow!
3. Ethan is being honored with an award on Monday for showing Caring at school. Each month his school has a different theme, and a couple of kids from each class are chosen to receive an award for that theme. I'm so proud of him, and I'm excited to go to the assembly on Monday!
When I was in college I took a linguistics class that talked about the origins of language and words and dialects and such. We also learned about gutteral stops, and that was fun. I don't know exactly why, but I just loved that class. I loved it so much that I "geeked out" at the temple and stared at the name card long enough to memorize all the names, places, and dates.
In other news:
1. Sadie tried to kill herself last week by eating some snail and slug bait. We didn't even know it until she started acting strange by standing in her cage, shaking and panting. She also didn't want to lay down, walked hunkered down, almost like an army crawl, and didn't use the bathroom even though she basically ran out to it. It was then that I called Brian and he said to look around the yard for something she might have eaten, and I found the bag of snail bait that she must have bit open. (There was an awful lot of "should have's" that we felt that day: should have put the bag away, should have put Sadie's bathroom fence back up after carting dirt through, etc.) I never thought I would be one to take an animal to the vet for something that I thought would be expensive, especially when I thought that she would die anyway, but I just couldn't watch her suffer like that. She was obviously in a lot of pain.
So I dropped off the kids at my sister's house and took her to the vet. Brian joined us there when he got off work, which ended up being about fifteen minutes after I got there. The vet was pretty busy, so we were still waiting when Brian arrived, and he was a little upset, and he was also more affected emotionally by Sadie's state than I was. There was a nice woman sitting near us that I had visited with a little bit, and she offered to say a prayer for Sadie. She put a hand on Sadie's head and said a very powerful prayer. Her faith, and especially her willingness to share her faith, amazed me. I do believe that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the only true and complete organized church on the earth, but I don't think that that makes the faith of other religions wrong. This woman had a strong testimony of God, and I felt His spirit while she prayed.
Anyway, Sadie spent a couple of nights at the vet. It didn't cost nearly as much as I thought it would. And Sadie is now home with us and acting like her normal puppy self.
2. Brian and I took a break from the never ending backyard project (Thanks to Brian and our friend John we now have water and electricity back by the pergola.) and we painted the ceiling of the school room blue. Yes, blue. I've got some big plans for the school room, and I can't wait to see it all come together. I really hope it looks as good as it does in my head! I'm planning on doing a modified home school for summer school this year, so I'm trying to get it all finished by the time the kids get out for the summer. Next week: I'm painting the walls yellow!
3. Ethan is being honored with an award on Monday for showing Caring at school. Each month his school has a different theme, and a couple of kids from each class are chosen to receive an award for that theme. I'm so proud of him, and I'm excited to go to the assembly on Monday!
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