The 3 Ring Circus

Everyone enjoys a night under the big top, right? Unless the big top is located in your bedroom and the amazingly weird sights and sounds happen all night long! My bed was the center ring. The bathroom and family room made good side rings and the kids bedrooms were staging areas.

It starts at 10 pm. No wait. Let's back up. Eli has slept through the night exactly twice in the last 4 months. Trying to take advantage and sleep while he is, we've been trying to go to bed "early". 10 is the best we seem to be able to do. We read scriptures, pray, talk, plan for the next day, and lights out at 10:30. At 10:30 and 5 seconds, Jason is asleep. Dork. (Not to say he's not helpful, he just has a talent to be able to fall asleep as soon as he wants to while I lack the ability to sleep...ever.) 10:31: thinking about Eli. Is he still breathing? He was coughing 2 seconds ago. Is he still alive!? Panic! Better check on him. Oh. He's cold. More blankets. NOW I can sleep.......10:35: Oh crud! I forgot to call and cancel the car insurance again! I've been paying that stupid payment for 2 months now on a car I no longer own. psbth.....I tell myself to stop thinking and go to sleep. 10:36 Oh! What about the laundry? Did I move it over? I can't remember? Oh wait! I did. Okay. There's nothing like wasting water and power rewashing loads over and over. 10:37: Was that Eli? It's Liam. 10:39: Liam comes crying out of his room itching and needing to pee. Wake up Jas. (It's his special job.) Liam has to be guided to the bathroom when he wakes up at night. Why? Don't ask me. 10:40: Jason puts Liam back in bed. 10:40 and 4 seconds: Jason is asleep. My mind wanders for the next 20 minutes. Wouldn't it be cool to go to Scotland? I'd like to go to Ephraim this weekend. Does the car need gas? I wonder if the gas payment has gone through yet? Stop IT! Count sheep. Yeah. 1. 2. 3. 4...Did I forget to make follow up appointments at the dentist? Shoot! I'll have to call tomorrow...COUNT...1. 2. 3. 4. , Etc. I start to drift off around 11. When...BAM! Something hits the window. A mouse falling into the window well? A rock slipped. What WAS that? I don't know. Not creeped out, but very distracted and curious. My mind wanders more. Drifting off at 11:15. Eli wakes up at 11:15 and 4 seconds. Feed Eli. Put him back in bed. Now the circus REALLY begins. He thinks it's time to play. Or burp. It's hard to tell when you're that out of it. Rock. Lay down. Get up. Sing. Kiss. Change diaper. Rock. Rock. Rock. The boy is asleep...in my bed. DANG IT! Just getting up to put him back, Natalie wakes up. Jason goes to take care of her. Her crying woke up Eli. Jason brings Natalie back to bed and we wrestle with 2 babies for a while. Hours or minutes later, Natalie is asleep on the couch, Eli is asleep in his car seat, Jason is asleep, Liam wakes up. Put Liam on the other couch. Kiss and love him. 3 a.m. Listen to 6 people coughing for 20 minutes. Start to fall asleep. Eli wakes up. Rock. Rock. Rock. Eli is asleep at 3:30 something. Sleep.....BAM, or rather loud talking. Ben is talking in his sleep again. Unintelligible something about school and Jane. Eli is stirring. NOOOOO!! Rock. Rock. Rock....Sleep-after my mind wanders for a while. About 4:30 am. 2 HOURS OF GLORIOUS SLEEP! 6:30, Jason leaves, Natalie wakes up and wants lovies, Eli wakes up and wants to eat. I turn on "Bouse", feed Eli, and drift back off to sleep. BAM! Eli head butts me on my cheekbone, looks at me, falls back asleep, and I get up for the day.

I still love being a mother.

Birthdays and update

I can't believe my kid the guy is 5! Liam is a silly kid. He likes to tell jokes and play silly games. One of his favorite things is eating. He LOVES grilled cheese sandwiches and would eat them for every meal if we let him. In fact, I over heard him telling Jane this gem the other day:
"When I was a baby, I loved cheese sandwiches and boobs."
He says hilarious stuff all the time. If I'm listening, I get lots of good laughs during the day. Liam does not like having his hair washed or taking naps. But, he LOVES taking baths and sometimes will stay in for about an hour by himself.
I think Liam had a pretty good birthday. He spends most of his days playing trains with his friend Thomas, so we fixed all of the GeoTrax (they had once been taken swimming), put batteries in everything and got some new additions to the GeoTrax airport for him. He spent all morning in the basement setting things up and trying them out.
He then got to take his friend Thomas miniature golfing and eat lunch at "The Pirate restaurant." He rounded the day off going shopping for presents from his grandmas. What a fun day!!

Natalie is still a monster but now she's 2 and we can blame it on her age! She likes to follow her older siblings around and mimic what they are doing. She sings lots of primary songs and LOVES, LOVES, LOVES nursery. She is potty training herself. (I earned it.) She loves to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (which she calls "Bouse") and Little Eisteins. She shouts "MOMMY!" and hands me the remote, says "Bouse," and gets what she wants. She's a good little sleeper and cuddler when she wants to be. Her favorite thing to do is get into new stuff and make a mess with it. She still loves makeup and lotion. In fact, the other day she painted the carpet on the stairs with lotion. Nice. She picks her own clothes out in the morning. I love to listen to her sweet voice singing "Twinkle, Twinkle" and watching her grin spread across her face when she's done something that she's proud of. (I love this picture, they're all watching the cake.)

Other happenings:
"Lige" is crawling all over and putting anything he can get his little grabby hands on into his mouth. He likes to wrestle and is keeping me up all night long most nights. We're tired but he's so sweet during the day, I forget to be mad at him. He is at the age where he gets bonks on his head as he tries to stand on his own, crawl under things that are too low, and walk along furniture.
The older kids love their school. I like that they walk home. My mom has been driving them to school in the morning so I went from 5 carpools/day last year to pretty much no carpools this year. Ben's teacher came to visit us last week and Ben proudly played her some songs on the piano and violin and then showed her the garden where she took his picture. I think it was one of the highlights of his life. Billy Bob and Janey are busy setting up their social agendas and learning how to do math and spelling. I'm going to miss their little notes spelled with the "sound spelling" technique. The other day, I found they had written notes to each other in sidewalk chalk: "Janey, you have chok on your fase." "I love Lizzy" (backward z's.) They are silly.

As a family, we have been memorizing "The Living Christ". I've been surprised at how quickly the kids, even Liam, are doing it. I seem to be the one slowing us up in that department. I have loved watching their testimonies and love for the Savior grow as we've talked about the meaning of what each line means. When they argue in the car, it has become my habit to start quoting and by the time I get to the last line, they are saying it along with me and the argument has ended. (Usually. ;)

Our condo has had some "maybe" offers. Meaning that people want it, but they're going REALLY SLOW or not sure if they can get financed. Hopefully, by the end of October it will be gone. Pray pray pray pray pray....infinity.

Camping Trip

Natalie is very independent

Our quaint campsite

We successfully went camping with all 6 kids. Whew! It was a lot of work, I think at one point I was begging Jason to go home with my mind, but so worth it!! For those of you who like a quick list as much as I do, here are some major events:

1. Natalie discovered s'mores and introduced them to my clothes.
2. Eli tried real solids for the first time, peach flavored rice puffs. I ate half the can on the way home.
3. Jas successfully lit the fire with only 2 matches.
4. We made our own hot dog roasting sticks.
5. Natalie hiked almost the whole way to the "Grotto" herself, and then I had to drag her away, kicking and screaming. She loves water.
6. Ben shared everything he learned in scouts so far with us.
7. The kids found Waldo about 507 times.
8. We drove the whole Nebo loop and got some amazing pictures!
9. Stargazing at night, just me and Jas.
10. Our camping spot fronted a giant open field where the kids discovered animals, room to run, and-Ben swears- a skeleton that came to life and tried to chase him!

We left Friday morning and stopped on the way up to hike to the grotto. Natalie kept trying to get out of my arms and down to the trail. During the last half, she was determined to get down into the water. She probably would have jumped and cheered when I took her shoes off if she knew how.

It took us a while to find a campsite. We didn't want to be to close to other people. In the end, we found a spot with onsite water that fronted a giant empty field that gave the kids a lot of entertainment and the campfire a lot of nice dry wood. We roasted hot dogs for dinner and s'mores for dessert. And then, as soon as the tent was cool enough the kids were excited to get in the tent and read together. We all took turns reading Harry Potter out loud and then hit the sack.

It took Natalie about 2 1/2 hours to fall asleep and Jason and I forgot to get mattresses for ourselves but it was still the best night's sleep I've had in about a month. We were kept awake for a while by a BYU ward and an eager Elder doing PPI's while walking around our tent. He returned later with a girl to flirt with. Finally, around 1 a.m. I had Jason ask them to talk somewhere else. He was surprised to find our tent sitting a few yards from him. ??? One line Jason heard from the couple was: "Hey, I know, let's talk about something deep....your bone marrow! Yeah, tell me about your bone marrow!" I am soooo glad I'm not single anymore.

The next day we packed up and drove the rest of the nebo loop, stopping on the way to test our 4-wheel drive, take pictures, and visit Devil's Kitchen. We're so glad we did it! Next year, we hope we can go for more than one night.

The Latest

We try to go somewhere as a family every Saturday during the summer. This week's trip was temple square. We had a really good time and the kids wanted to do everything. We'll have to go back again to get to the stuff we missed. The observation deck on the church office building was open so we rode to the top. Thank goodness none of the kids had ear infections! Mine were ringing from the rapid elevator ride but the kids just said they felt like they were flying.

Highs and lows

I was at a low point once. It was back to school time, Walmart, Saturday. I don't know why I thought it would be a good idea to take 4 kids to Walmart on a hot summer day, late in the afternoon. (I don't think we even had naps that day.) Maybe I thought since I was buying the kids backpacks, it would buy their love, devotion, and good behavior for the afternoon. Maybe it was driving me nuts to be stuck inside with not enough distractions to help the twins contain, at least in a very small way, their excitement about the upcoming debut into kindergarten. Not that I really wanted them to keep it in, just that I had to help them be patient until the first day of school actually began. You can only answer the question "How many more days?" so often before you go crazy.

Anyway, after many firm, yet loving reminders to stop whining, screaming, crying, etc. with threats of "Do you want me to put all of the backpacks back?" and "You'll have a nap when we get home" something snapped. I remember being conscious of that fact that I was at a low point. I tried to pry the offending child out of the cart when she employed the use of the oh-so-effective "rubber legs". I had meant to just get her out and put someone else in, but by the time I had wrestled her from the cart, I was gone and monster mom had replaced me. The lady in the aisle with me kept glaring at me. Well! I raised my hand and SPANKED MY CHILD IN WALMART!! That wiped the glare off the nosy lady's face...unfortunately she replaced it with a judgmental "what-kind-of-parent-are-you?" face. I glared right back at her and challenged her to call social services on me.

I write this experience because last night we savored a high. We went to the ward swimming party at the Scera. As I watched my little (and I mean little as in age) family play and laugh together all I could think about was how blessed I really am. I wished I could have gotten a picture of Jane and Lizzy holding tight to Jason while they stood under buckets of water that would fill and suddenly pour gallons of water on them. Or Ben begging to go swim in the deeper part-he normally won't go into the water very far or ever put his head under the water. Liam was calm and happy for the first time in a while, I think the cold water soothed him. I wish I could have captured Natalie's smile after she slid down the slide into the shallow water. She was wearing one of those suits that had inserts of floaties in it. She looked like a round little.... something adorable!!

Thanks Mom and Dad for taking Eli so we could spend a great night bonding with the other kids. We had a blast!!