Hasn't this been FUN?

I must say, I feel as if I'm returning from a sojourn in hell. Pardon my French. I think I've had other entries complaining of illness, and I do apologize for adding another, but it's got to be said. Being sick when you're pregnant just isn't fair. Today is day 14 of possibly the nastiest cold I've had in a decade. It's been horrible! And I need you all to feel bad for me! I think the part of any cold I hate the worst is the sore throat, which usually only lasts two days or so - I had one for more than 10 days. And the sinus infections, headaches, no sleeping, the violent coughing....plus, both the kids got it too. And Troy. Today, I still have many symptoms but I at least feel like I'm turning a corner. I really would like to continue moaning and groaning about this, but it doesn't make for a very interesting entry. I'll sum up with this: Let it be known that I have felt really horrid for a lot of days.

I will comment on a few of my favorite kid moments over the past few days. We've had a LOT of down time. I'm really trying hard to not spread this illness too far and wide, though I did let CTP go to school last Tuesday. I couldn't help it - he was having his first big field trip! He was so excited, and his cold wasn't too bad yet. They went to Cactus and Tropicals, a local nursery. My guess was that they were learning about plants, but all I could get him to tell me about it was that he and his friend Issac were detectives looking for clues. I love his creative little mind.

Anyway, one evening after dinner, we were all enjoying some Oreos dipped in milk. I then let the kids watch a show while I did some cleaning up. After a few minutes CTP came running in and very excitedly told me, "Mom. I just saw a preview for Oreos! We HAVE Oreos! THEY'RE MILK'S FAVORITE COOKIE!!!!" As he said this last part he clenched his little fists and enunciated each syllable by shaking his fists in the air. It was so funny. A "preview," by the way, is his word for commercials. He's picked up on a couple of other commercial messages of this type. Perhaps my favorite was a couple of weeks ago I was brushing C's teeth and he stopped and said something along the lines of, "Mom, does this toothbrush have a tongue and gum cleanser? 98% of bacteria are on your tounge and gums." Okay, thanks for the message that I need to turn off the tv!

RAP is really into "Old McDonald." She loves it when we sing it to her, the more verses the better. Little did you know that Old McDonald's farm includes tigers, monkeys, owls, and even the occasional dinosaur. Lately she's started singing it to herself, almost non-stop. Her version goes, "Old Donald, a cow a cow, moo moo moo." She will sing this to her self 50 times in a row, and I love it. You can get her to add a pig or a sheep once in a while, but her focus is on the cows. Then she figured out she could be funny, and sing about silly things on the farm. "Old Donald, a feet, a feet!" or "Old Donald, a Chase, a Chase." Then she took a look at me and sang, "Old Donald, a tummy, a tummy."

My Favorite Part

When I made my gender announcement, I forgot to mention my favorite part. CTP, of course, has been certain that he had a brother coming all along. If you have ever taken my advice and read my brother Adam's blog about his son S, you'd know how very very upset S was when his new baby, born in February, turned out to be a girl instead of a boy, or better yet, Flash. C obviously picked up on this because when we told him that he was going to have a brother, his first reaction was, "YAY!!!!!" His second reaction?

"Smith wanted a baby brother, but I'm going to get one first!"

Yeah, no competition there.

It's a....

BOY!!!!

This morning my mother came over at 8:30 so that Troy and I could make the grueling trek across the street to Salt Lake Regional Medical Center and have an ultrasound of our latest offspring. To tell the truth, I've been almost positive that we were having a girl. This pregnancy has been much more similar to RAP's than to CTP's, and when we heard the heartbeat at one of my appointments, my midwife told me that it was pretty fast, thus much more likely a girl than a boy. Also, and don't laugh, but have you heard of the Chinese gender horoscope? There's a calendar based on the age of the mother and the month of the baby's birth that predicts the gender of the baby. It's been correct for both my kids, and is often correct for friends I know. Well, it said that I was having a girl if the baby was due in September, which my midwife predicted. However, today at the ultrasound, it was determined that I'm farther along than that, and I'm actually due in August - just the day after RAP was due. And yes, the Chinese calendar predicts a boy for me if it's due in August. Funny, huh.

Needless to say, we're very happy. It's a little strange whenever you have to adjust your thinking like this. I really truly thought I was having a girl, had been imagining a girl and planning for a girl, remembering all my favorite little things that RAP wore, thinking of names, etc. And suddenly, that person doesn't exist. It's a boy! I'm really happy that CTP is going to have a brother. I think RAP will probably enjoy being the only girl. Of course, only time will tell us that. I don't have any boy names picked out at all, but it sure is fun for us start thinking about that, and seeing that healthy little body growing and moving around in there. We got to see his little hands in front of his face, and we saw him yawn. He's a kicker, too. Wow. I'm actually getting more excited to meet this person. Of course, this evening when C dumped an entire glass of milk on the floor while R was clinging to my legs and crying, it was hard to imagine throwing a baby in the picture too, but I'm sure we'll all survive, right? RIGHT???? Of course we will.

A Visit to Thanksgiving Point

I've always known that Thanksgiving Point had a great Dinosaur Museum and I've always meant to take CTP down for a visit. However, it's pretty pricey and I just never made the effort to make it happen. Then my friend Emily let me know that Monday nights are only five bucks a person - now that I can manage. So this evening she and I, C and R and Emily's three darling boys piled in her van and made the trek. Wow was it worth it! Of course, I've become of bit of a dinosaur zealot, but I really think it was pretty neat. The displays were set up along a chronological pathway with both skeletons and life-like models combined in realistic settings. C was so ecstatic that he could hardly contain himself. I think he missed most of the museum because he couldn't stop running and running from one display to the next, hardly even pausing to look carefully because he was overcome by all the prehistoric delights surrounding him. There were some wonderful play areas dispersed among the displays as well - including a great water and sand play pool filled with mini toy dino's to scoot around and build mountains for and bury. Really neat.

By the way, on an unrelated topic, I feel the need to let you know that RAP is a genius. She is not yet 20 months, and can recognize a circle, heart, star and triangle, and she also knows the colors yellow, purple, and green. I'm telling you, she's brilliant. Don't you think? C cares very little about learning the letters of the alphabet, but I find that forgivable since at the museum tonight he saw a giant millipede and informed me that it was an "arthroplura." The thing is, I'd be better if he'd stick to just dinosaurs, but he's starting to expand to all prehistoric animals, both pre- and post-mesozoic era. I can't keep up.

Pastoral Filth

We've entered a wonderful time of year. Wonderful, yet so filthy! I no longer work quite so hard to keep my kids busy and happily engaged in meaningful activity...I just open the back door. They both just run outside and spend hours having an absolute riot just getting dirty. We have lots of (for lack of a better word) "wilderness" in our back yard, and lots of currently unused garden space. This means there are mounds and mounds of soft dirt just begging for playing in. A hose usually gets involved as well. I suppose as a mother I should have qualms about this. They really do get so unbelievably dirty - and their clothes are nearly hopeless - thus, they generally end up naked as well. This time of year this will go on for an hour or two or sometimes three, and then they're so cold and dirty that they come begging for a bath. Thus the cycle begins - from a romp in the back yard, me going out and sponging them off to at least get the clods of dirt off, and then running a hot bath for them to play in for another hour or so. Often, the kids would like the cycle to begin again as soon as it's over. I just can't help loving how much they enjoy being outside, no matter the resulting laundry challenges.

I was going to go on to describe two days last week when the filth got out of control when RAP decided to use the tub as her potty not once but twice in a row...but that seemed like maybe more information than anyone would want....

On a different day last week we got the chance to try out our new kite. It's a really cool kite - a big ornate dragon CTP just went nuts over when he saw it. There was just enough breeze to suggest that we might be able to get it off the ground. We made a quick trip to Sugarhouse Park with the famous kite flying hill (the same hill that's famous for death-defying sledding in the winter.) The kite never really took off. I don't know if that was due to the lack of quality in the kite or the breeze, but it was still fun. And one of those happy moments when you watch your family having fun together and remember what all the filth is for. Yes, I thought a great deal about George Banks.

A Trip to my old Boulder

It's so hard to even know where to begin! I moved to SLC from Boulder, Colorado just before the start of sixth grade in 1984. It was a tough move and my family went through some hard times after we got here (don't worry, we're all okay now:) But each of the four kids in my family have absolutely the fondest of memories of our childhoods in Boulder. Of course, some of us remember a lot more than others, but even saying the word "Boulder" seems to conjure up images of safety and happiness for each of us.

My Brother Adam and his wife Whitley are now living just outside Boulder in a town called Superior - he's a lawyer in a firm in downtown Boulder. They just had their second baby in February, and were planning on blessing her Sunday, March 25. I really wanted to go meet baby L and visit Boulder for the first time since I was 18, and for the second time ever since I moved away. I didn't think it would be possible - I couldn't imagine my kids managing 8+ hours in the car. But my mom and dad urged me to caravan with them, and we made it. Actually, the drive went great. Thanks to a portable DVD player on loan from a friend and my mom in the car with us, the ride was almost the easiest part. It's exhausting to have little kids in a strange town.

I was delighted to meet L - she is a tiny little thing, and sweet as can be. My first thought was that she looked EXACTLY like Adam, but as the week went by she seemed to grown into her own little face. CTP and his cousin STR got to spend a lot of time together, and let's just say that they were the best of times AND the worst of times. There was a lot of fun play and also a little rivalry there that got quite explosive, but there's no need to go into detail. Believe me.

What a thrill to see so many of my old haunts! When we first got to Boulder, there was little I remembered, because we were driving through a part of town that seemed to have been turned into strip-mall heaven, and I was very disappointed. However, we got around to many places, everywhere from my old neighborhoods to the library, from schools I attended to the grocery store I remember best (King Soopers!) What I was really surprised about was what small little landmarks I unexpectedly remembered and realized had meant a great deal to me. For example, our neighborhood of "Spanish Hills" was a couple of miles outside of town. In between were several fields and farms, and there was one specific field always full of cows that sort of marked the point for me when we were officially in or out of town, depending on which direction we were going. When thinking of Boulder, I hardly ever thought of that field, but once I saw it I felt instantly like a 10 year old again. I loved that field, and looked for it every time we went to or from home.

I also really enjoyed learning the layout of Boulder - I never drove there before, and didn't have a very clear picture of the layout of the city in my head. Suddenly to understand where the library was in relation to the Pearl Street Mall - this great outdoor walking mall where we played our instruments as children on weekend evenings - it was so interesting.

Of course the best part was spending time with family, seeing Adam and Whitley happy and getting settled, enjoying the new baby and S's ferocious energy, eating Whitley's mom's good food...ah yes. I could ramble on forever, but I'll put in some photos instead.

R was delighted with L, which made me happy. Usually she has absolute fits of rage and jealousy if she catches me even so much as looking at another baby.

Our house on Caballo Court, in the neighborhood of Spanish Hills. This is the house we lived in when Peter was born, and the house we all remember best. Just looking at this photo makes me want to tell a hundred stories. In my marriage, Troy has always been able to tell me the stories of his youth as we drive around town, and I've never been able to do that. I don't see those places, and I was so sorry Troy wasn't able to join us on this trip. Another time, I hope.

On our third day in town, I insisted that we go on an official outing someplace. We took S with us to visit the Denver Aquarium, which was fantastic. Here is C looking at the otters. There were amazing shark displays, huge turtles, wonderful fish of all kinds, and even a pair of tigers. The highlight was probably feeding the rays. I've never felt anything like it. You held a little dead fishie in between your knuckles in the water and these rays, two and three feet across, would swim up your hand and suck it out. C was much braver than I was. The other highlight was mom and dad buying these massive suckers for the boys.

After the aquarium, we decided to drive home through Golden, Colorado. Yes, home of Coors Beer. Also the home of a train museum that we visited as kids. It's a big yard just packed full of old trains from all ages that you can climb on and walk through.

This is the downtown library. We loved going to this place. Of course, the inside is quite different - completely remodeled, and nothing about that was familiar. I was so glad that the facade at least was the same. Our favorite part of the library was a giant book they kept on the floor of the children's area. It was made of all sorts of fabric, like a crazy quilt, and had several big padded pages that it took a couple of kids to turn. I think it must have finally become a health hazard and been incinerated or something.

Doulgas Elementary School. It looks absolutely exactly the same as it did when I attended. Certainly a boring picture for you, but it takes my breath away.

The Pearl Street Mall is about three blocks of down town Boulder that has been paved in bricks and is an outdoor shopping mall. There are lots of neat little shops, and you can always find someone playing an instrument with the case open before them, hoping for tips. As kids, we did that a couple of times. We were a hit. I remember some summer evenings with acrobats and jugglers and tightrope walkers and everything. It was pretty quiet on the Sunday afternoon we went there, but there were still the two little play areas for kids I recall with absolute clarity and adoration. One has several boulders just for climbing and scampering on. The other has four animals, two stone and two bronze. They were both crawling with kids and I loved seeing my own children taking part.

So that's probably more information than anyone wanted to know. I'm so glad I got the chance to go. I won't say it was easy - we were all exhausted by the end and my kids took about a week to recover. I was going to go visit Peter next, leaving in just two days, but it was too much - sorry, Peter & Sheri! The kids did so great but really needed activity every moment and it was a lot of work. Worth it, though. I'm so grateful to my parents for towing me along - I certainly didn't make the trip easy for them. It was a great chance though, and I was so glad to see Adam's family. Peter, we'll get there soon!

Snotty Even in His Sleep

I'm writing this post partially to procrastinate writing another one - it's now been a week since I returned from a trip with my children and my parents to my home town of Boulder, Colorado (or as CTP says, "Codorado,") and I'm so full of feelings and joys and about 200 pix to chose from I just haven't sat down to write about it yet. Tomorrow.

For tonight, I must tell you that my husband is a very witty person, always quick with a snappy reply or clever response to what you have to say. He does this even in his sleep. He has the uncanny ability to carry on a conversation as if he were awake even when he's not, and many are the times when I have irritatedly reminded him of something we already talked about only to realize that he was asleep when the conversation happened. Some of my very favorite incidents occurred early in our marriage when I was still getting used to his snoring (and before I started snoring myself, apparently and much to my horror.) I'd gently nudge him and say, "Troy, roll over." Once he replied, "how about you roll over instead," and another time he said, "well, which way should I roll?" Snotty, I tell you.

Over the weekend we really didn't even attempt to watch the LDS General Conference. We just wrestle the kids for two straight hours and get frustrated. So we DVRed the whole thing and have planned on watching one talk an evening, starting last night. After we finally got RAP to bed we decided to watch the first talk of the first session, Elder Scott's talk about prayer. Almost as soon as the talk began I looked over at Troy and he was already, uh, ....listening with his eyes closed. If you know what I mean. I said in disbelief, "are you already asleep?" He said in a perfectly normal conversational tone, "No, I'm just saying my prayers." I sheepishly left him alone, until this morning I mentioned it and he started laughing out loud because he didn't remember saying that - of course, he really was asleep.

A Day in the Life

Hi. What a day. No photos to go along with this one, just a peek into this lovely day.

Troy had to go to Moab for work. I was happy for him because he loves Moab and I knew he'd get a chance to ride his bike a bit. When he's gone, I have a bad habit of staying up even later than usual. I'm so crazy (I know we already covered that in the last post, but it must be said.) I am so exhausted, yet sometimes the emotional exhaustion outweighs the physical, and I must stay awake after the kids go to bed to have a little free time. So I stayed up and watched "Stranger Than Fiction," with Will Ferrell and Emma Thompson - I loved it. I went to bed at maybe 12:30. RAP has been sleeping well lately... until last night. 3:30 she wakes up - and is obviously in some sort of discomfort because she can't settle down. She's in bed with me, which usually helps, but she rolls around and sits up and asks for grapes and asks for water and sits on my face and stands up etc. until almost 6:00, where upon I let out an inhuman, yet strangely mother-esque shriek: GO TO SLEEP! Guess what. It worked. She started crying, then lay down and went to sleep. I'm prepared to try this technique again.

I let her sleep until 10:00, figuring I'd just try to make her skip her nap. Wow. Grumpy baby. I of course did not sleep until 10:00, but until 7:30 when CTP got up. Wow. Grumpy mommy. Then this afternoon RAP was running outside and tripped and fell, and of course caught herself on her arm. She came in sobbing and holding onto one wrist with the other hand. Oh dear. I let her cry for about 15 minutes before I decided that Friday at 4:00 was a good time to call the Dr. before it became an evening trip to the ER. I must say, I do love our Dr. Durham. (Hooray for your dad, GHD3.) Luckily, R has no broken bones, just a sprain or a bad soft tissue injury. I was a bit of a bummer to leave the office with her still holding her arm and crying, but at least she was castless. She fell asleep on the way home, had a brief nap, and as soon as she woke up, started acting like nothing had ever happened to her arm. Which is good, right? Troy got home from Moab shortly after. He came home early due to it being too dang cold to do much.

***

Well, now that "today" has become "yesterday," and we've all woken up from a long night of deep sleep, I think we'll be okay. It didn't feel like that at about 4:30 yesterday!

Rachel's Weird Dreams

Meet Steve. He's the now-retired host of Blue's Clues, which I have watched perhaps more than I should have in the past few weeks. Sorry, but all-day morning sickness can lead to some extra t.v. time. This may be more info than you want to know about me, but I just have to share two crazy dreams that make me laugh every time I think of them. One was that Steve and I were really good buddies, and we headed out to grab some lunch one day. Who should be there but Matt Lauer - host of the Today Show. The three of us sat and had a lovely conversation, enjoying lunch, and then Steve and I gave Matt a ride home. Such nice guys....in my head, anyway.

My other favorite dream concerned me and my new knife. I just got the most wonderful knife - it's a really nice chef's knife that's so sharp it almost seems like magic. Yes, I love it enough that I dreamed about it. I dreamed that I was in charge of planning an entire summer girl's camp with no one's help my but old boss and Matt Damon. (Yeah, I don't know. I'm crazy.) I also had to cook lunch for both of them. I was so discouraged and overwhelmed and kept making horrible mistakes until I realized I had my trusty knife with me. Hooray for the Santoku Knife! With the help of my one dependable sidekick, I saved the day.

I still chuckle when I think of these dreams, though they're certainly only funny to me. Ha ha, anyone who actually read this entry. Sorry about your wasted time! Perhaps I have revealed too much about myself...but now you have proof that I really am crazy.

That's My Boy!

A couple of nights ago CTP and Troy and I were up late, chilling out and watching a little t.v. CTP asked if he could watch his own show. I was expecting a request for Blue's Clues or at least Prehistoric Planet. No, he asked for "the guy with the funny hair and the glasses who is silly and cooks food." It took a moment for us to figure out what he was talking about, and then it dawned on us that he was requesting my favorite cooking show on the Food Network - Good Eats! This is Alton Brown, my food hero, and host of Good Eats. His is the first show I've ever watched that actually teaches WHY food does what it does when you cook. And he's very silly. CTP just giggles when I have it on. He actually asks me to rewind some parts several times. I was so proud! My boy wants to watch cooking shows with me! Troy instantly started searching for some sort of sporting game...just kidding. Troy loves Good Eats too. Half the time we feel like we should be taking notes on all the information. Alton, you've done well!

Told Ya it was Funny....

For a long time I've been trying to get a photo and/or movie of RAP doing my two favorite signs she does, and I finally got them:

"Cold"

"Scared"

Here's the video:

Other than that, not much exciting has been going on. We're just enjoying some beautiful early spring weather here, getting outside a lot. It's amazing how much easier the days are when we can just open up the back door and let the kids wander.

Dancing Queen

Tonight we were invited to attend a play at the local elementary school to see my sister Margaret's daughter K do some serious singing and dancing and puppeteering. It was quite a show. I took both kids, hoping we'd get a chance to see at least some of the show before RAP made it absolutely clear she was leaving the building (kind of like church) (or any other setting requiring holding still and listening.)

Much to my surprise, once the singing started, R was glued. We were sitting on the floor just in front of all the seating and though C made a few "I'm bored" type comments and mostly just rolled around on the floor, R sat in my lap and avidly soaked it in. Every time a song ended she applauded wildly and then turned to me, signing for more music.

Within a couple of songs, she couldn't contain herself any longer and with every song she'd leap out of my lap and twirl furiously in front of me, bouncing her little bum, swirling her arms and basically dancing her little heart out. I SO wish I had my camera there. I did have a flashback to the Steve Martin movie "Parenthood" in which his toddler escapes on to the stage of the school play and basically destroys the whole thing before they can grab him. Luckily R kept back from the actual performance enough to not be too much of a distraction, but I did catch one dad aiming his camera at her as she danced for a few moments. I felt that that was permission enough to let the dancing go on.

Oh, the joyous moments of parenthood we enjoy when we're not too tired to notice what's going on. Here's a shot of R helping me make our "once was alive but is now dead" (see previous post) chicken we had for dinner. Salad, anyone?

Mousecapades

We have been invaded by two teeny tiny thieves. Two little mice - the tiniest I've ever seen - have taken up residence in our house. They don't seem to be very shy since they tend to come out and keep us company (especially when I have friends over) and I know they are light-weight since I have seen them sitting on the traps eating peanut butter without disturbing the snapping mechanism. After a couple of days of this, we decided to maybe try something else, so we put a little D-con under a drawer where we figured the hideout was. CTP wasn't really into the poison idea - he was stalking the mice with a pair of tongs claiming he wanted to squish them to death. Nice.

Of course yesterday while I had two friends and their combined four children over for lunch the mice made their usual appearances. Due to their rather NOT shy nature I decided to just trap one, which I easily did. Of course, once CTP saw the tiny creature his attitude of being the bearer of horribly painful death changed into, "Can we keep him?" I tried to explain about wild mice bringing filth and sickness into our home but he didn't much care. He came unglued when I tried to talk about other means of extermination or even letting it go. So we waited for a few hours, C periodically checking in on our new pet.

By the end of the day, it had become obvious that the mouse had eaten some poison and was very sick. I talked C into letting it go so it wouldn't get more sick....I couldn't think of anything else to tell him. We took it to the very back of our yard and let it go where I could see it was in dire straights. C wanted to make a sandwich for it. Hey, a sandwich always picks me up when I'm down.

Well, I got him distracted enough to come in (and WASH HANDS) and do our evening stuff and go to bed. I had forgotten about it - I figured the other mouse had/would suffer the same fate as the first (minus four hours in a Tupperware container) and let it go. That was until today when C was playing outside and came to me with the dead mouse IN HIS HAND (AHHHHHHHHHH!) - actually, that's what I really said. I scared him so bad he threw the mouse on the floor and burst into tears, which he was close to anyhow due to his pet's discovered death.....man. Sometimes I seriously need a parenting manual. After further hand washing we did some talking about the passing of animals into the Heavenly Realms and he seemed to feel better. Sweetly, he did mention that Alex wasn't ever going to die. This I take as a good sign of C's affection for Alex, which isn't always clear. Mostly C likes to torment him or ignore him. Lately he has taken to feeding him his toast crusts - yes, he's realizing the true purpose of dog ownership. I hope their relationship continues to blossom.

Anyhow, as a final note of C's new contemplations regarding the circle of life, tonight for dinner as I gave him a piece of chicken, he asked, "Mom, is this the part of the used-to-be-alive and now-is-dead chicken?" Pause. "Yes." What else could I say?

Other Pix from the Week

Snowed In!

We really did have quite the snowy day. Of course the snow started just as we were on our way to preschool - it was a full on blizzard. Traffic lights out, blinding snow blowing everywhere, little sedans slipping and sliding every which way. Thankfully our jeep did fine. The problem was all the other cars that couldn't move anywhere. It took us nearly 40 minutes to get up 1st South from 11th East to 13th East, try to turn south on 13th, then u-turn, go back up 1st South to University Street, south to 4th South and back home on 11th East. It was that bad. We made a good try for preschool, but it was just too nasty. Luckily I called our beloved Miss Patti and she reassured me that they wouldn't be doing anything of vast importance today... as opposed to the unmissable preschool lessons every other day...

Once the snow stopped around noon it was actually a really nice day with some sun shining on the piles of much-needed fresh snow. I thought the day was really going to drag out forever with nowhere to go, but we filled it up with making pizza dough, homemade play dough, and inviting Brandon and his mom over for the afternoon. The kicker was after they left and Troy and CTP spent over two hours in the back yard building a magnificent snow fort. I couldn't believe that C stuck with Troy that long, and vice-versa, frankly. Troy was so cold in his jeans and fleece but C kept wanting turns at digging, which he did very slowly and carefully. They've really had some great father-son time together the past few days.

Q & A

Q: What is worse than having a child with the stomach flu?

A: Having two children with the stomach flu.

Q: What is worse than having two children with the stomach flu?

A: Also suffering from pretty good "morning" sickness.

Q: What is worse than having two children with the stomach flu and suffering from morning sickness?

A: Ending up with the stomach flu yourself.

Not pretty, folks. Not pretty. Just ask Troy. He's the one who had to spend his Sunday mopping us all up, and he's the one who's been sick with a nasty cold for four days. That's all the detail I can give without getting into the severly disgusting...I'll just say this. Shouldn't pregnant moms be off-limits or something? Seriously! Today everyone is pretty much better except me...oh wait, that's just the regular morning sickness.

You know, there was one upside to this day. Well, two. First of all it was a Sunday so Troy was totally available. This was not something I was able to handle on my own. Second, CTP has never been so sweet and tender and polite. He mostly just curled up like a little bug on the couch, watching shows and dozing. He was so sweet with his daddy - specifically requesting Troy's presence next to him because "I need daddy to feel better." He asked for everything he needed in the sweetest little voice with a please and a very deliberate thank you. If only he were like this all the time, minus the barfing, of course. He fell asleep on the floor at 7:45 and that ended our day.

Many Goings On!

So much to tell! First of all, let us joyfully welcome baby L to the Romney clan. Adam has no longer a family of three, but of four. L, a girl, arrived on Friday the 16th at 6:00 p.m. and is beautiful. She actually looks a lot like her big brother S, and he's beautiful too. Adam tells some very funny stories about S on his blog, and the account of L's arrival begins a second Adam-blog. I encourage you to check them out. Adam is turning out to be as funny a writer as his dad and brother. Oh my, that S cracks me up.

Peter's wife, Sheri, is also expecting in October, making the third Romney baby due this year. Holy Fertility, batman. I am hopeful that Sheri and I will have smooth pregnancies and happy births as well. Yay Whitley! L is the only Romney baby born not in the late summer/fall. We have (count 'em) six grand kids all born within three months of each other, three of them within 10 days, and my next one could make the fourth in those 10 days, if we ever figure out when the heck I'm due.

Other happenings? Nothing as exciting as that, I'll tell you. Troy is in San Diego for a few days on business so I'm doing the single parent thing for a few days. Not too bad, but due to the morning sickness we're watching a lot of shows and CTP is having many play-dates elsewhere. Pregnancy is starting to settle in - I'm definitely looking the part, which is nice. I like wearing maternity clothes instead of just the largest articles of clothing I can find. My lump is no longer squashable. Of course, I am wondering if I'm having triplets, due to the two superfluous lumps to be found on my hips, but I think that's probably just the french fries. French fries are what get me through the first three months. I'm trying to just enjoy the journey and feel happy about creating new life along with new hips.

I'll end with my favorite CTP story of the week. We've had a few days of gorgeous weather (despite the snow we got today...) (and I know, we desperately need the moisture, so I'm not complaining). C and his buddy Ryan were playing in the front yard - actually on our neighbor's front yard, where the hill is much steeper and the grass seems to actually grow, unlike our patchy stubble. They were standing at the top of the hill, poising to leap, and shouting, "CHOWMUNGO!" just as they threw themselves down the hill in true super-hero fashion. I can only assume they were meaning "cowabunga," but the emotion was certainly there. Oh, and he would also like us to name the new baby "Ahmuncho." Let's see what spell-check has to say about THAT one.

Good Things

First of all, thank heavens for a little guy named Brandon. We are in such an interesting situation in our neighborhood - we are so close to the university that almost everyone who moves in is just here for school. The houses in the area are either huge (yeah, I don't know what happened at our place.... :) and only affordable by the very wealthy, or they have been divided into apartments. We only know one other family in our ward who actually owns their house. And, as luck would have it, they have a boy just a little younger than CTP. They'll be in the same grade, and they get along beautifully. I actually have many friends in the 'hood with little boys, but they're all at least a year older than C and none of them will be staying for a very long time. I love them all, and hate to think of them going. I'm so grateful there's a chance that Brandon's family will stay. He's another dinosaur man, (you can see them here being t-rexes,) and his mom and I trade play dates at least once a week, sometimes more. Today CTP went over there for like four hours and ...I got a nap!

Also during CTP's absense, RAP and I played outside a little bit. She, like all kids, just loves puttering around outside. She loves running down our driveway, poking the dirt with a stick and just frolicking in general. Her language seems to be developing at last. For months now she'll jabber like a little loon but will only sign actual words. I would say in just the past few weeks she's started trying more words. It's pretty cute. Today she tried "eat," "bath," "toast," "hold you" and best of all, "poopie."

Up Up and Away

Up into the mountains (well, into the foothills anyway) and away to the zoo. What a wonderful morning. Somehow the smog has mostly cleared out of the valley and the high for the next few days is around 50. Isn't it ... a breath of fresh air? Yes, I heard about the weather & immediately left for the zoo. We're at a good zoo stage here - both kids can run around all they want, I don't really need to carry anyone - occasionally RAP, but mostly she walks everywhere. The animals were up and moving, stretching their legs. Our favorite was the gibbon - he was in his outdoor globe of a cage, and swinging around and making quite a racket. The shot of RAP is of her mimicking him. Here is a sample of the gibbon's antics:

We spent two hours wandering around, stomping in snow, enjoying the wildlife and the expensive zoo popcorn. I think Hogle Zoo is doing a great job with the animals. If you haven't been there lately, I recommend the new Asian Highlands exhibit - it houses the large cats and it's really spectacular. If you can catch the tiger taking a swim, you're a lucky soul. We also enjoyed the great apes. CTP took one look at the huge male organutan and said, "Oh Mom, isn't he adorable?" Hmmmm. Not too sure about that, but okay! RAP's comment was, "Pie!" Anyway, hallelujah for good weather. I don't know if you've picked up the subtle nuances from my previous posts, but I'm about sick of winter. Could you tell?

Filling Up Our Days

My question is, How did the pioneers do it? How do people living in northern Alaska do this? We're scrambling here to find enough to fill our days without watching t.v. 100% of the time. I got a little jealous reading the Durham's blog - I am sure it's still quite cold up in Seattle, but I saw lots of blue sky and kids having outside time. How lovely! Truthfully, we did get some light snow that cleared the valley of the smothering smog for at least a few days, but we're still too wet and cold for much outside time.

Thank heavens for Oma. My mom took CTP on an outing for a few hours on Tuesday to the Dinosaur Museum up at the U of U. They came home with quite a project for him - a little prehistoric rhinoceros kit complete with a plastic rhino to paint and also a little block of sand to dig rhino bones out of. This was a project that really did take the whole day - I thought that because it was a kid's toy the sand would chip away pretty easily. Uh, nope. We dug at that thing all day long until I finally ran it under hot water in a sieve to release the little puzzle of bones. A bit tedious on my end, but it was right up CTP's alley.

As for RAP, she has discovered that she adores drawing. I'm really trying to not read anything into this or get hopes up about having an artist - it's just nice that she'll focus on something for a while. She drew the other night for more than an hour. Yes, she gets messy and so does the table, but I love to watch her immerse herself into the experience. I think I need to find a new medium for her - something between markers, which are so messy, and crayons, which frustrate her terribly. She also started saying a new word during this project:"Happy!" Sorry this video is sideways. I am obviously a little slow, and I'm having great difficulty in figuring out how to get it straight. In the meantime, please tilt your head for best viewing. :) )