One Month

Zora Jane is nearly two months old and I'm just now getting to her one-month old blog post.  That's about how things are going around here.  Greg says she is of equal difficulty as the other children, and aside from Rex who was the worst by far, I think she's pretty bad.  Zora spent most of her first month crying.  She either nursed, was being held and cajoled into silence or cried.  Especially after my parents left when she was 3 weeks old.

The first month, she slept with me.  I decided that with 4 kids I no longer had the luxury of actually awaking up at night to feed a baby and then put the baby back in her own bed.  So she just slept with me.  Most nights she'd start out in her swing so I could get an hour or so of real sleep before she woke up and I used my mom's neck pillow that she accidentally left here to sleep sitting up.  I now daydream about sleeping laying down, spread eagle.  Greg sleeps on the couch.  But Zora is a pretty cuddly baby now, which many moms are jealous of.

Zora also really likes people.  I usually sit on the couch backed up to the wall with our family pictures on it to nurse her so during burp breaks she likes to look at the pictures.  She really likes people and gets upset, well more upset than usual, when left alone.  Alice and Rex are pretty good at singing songs to her and making faces at her so I can make dinner, or at least start making dinner (Greg has to finish most nights).

1 week photoshoot

1st bath

She looks sweet here , but she's really just crying

Taking over my bed

She actually has 2 bathsuits, kind of silly but also adorable

Zora checking out all the family pictures

Alice on Zora duty

1 moth photoshoot.  

Oh, what's that I hear?  Zora.  Crying.  Again.  No time for spell checking tonight.

Happy 4th

This year, knowing that I would have a small baby on the 4th, decided that I would do things the easy way for the 4th.  I have a hard time with that because I really like throwing parties.  But I forced myself to keep plans small.

We invited Greg's family over for lunch (I bought all the food pre-made).  Then we spent the rest of the day at the Wheatley's pool since they were in Utah.  I came back early since I was pretty sure Zora had heat stroke.  She didn't, but it was hot and she screamed when I stuck her toe in the pool.  Oops.

Zora is actually in her adorable bathing suit here--too bad she screamed when I tried to sneak her in the pool

That night I decided that I wanted to see big fireworks because that's what we did when I was a kid.   But I wanted to good seats so I thought we'd actually go to the baseball game.  Turns out the Charlotte Knight's tickets were $40 to stand so we went to the Kannopolis Intimidators instead.  Much cheaper.  Too bad half the country had the same fantastic idea that I had.  Parking was next to impossible.  Lines for food (also part of my easy plan was just to buy over-priced hot dogs) were 30 minutes long.  And it was hot.

During the game, the kids ran around on the walkway just above our seats, stressing Greg out.  Then at the bottom of the 9th, Greg noticed a poop smell.  I thought it was just a Zora fart, but Henry was standing next to me so I checked him too.  It was up his back and spilling out of his diaper onto the pavement.  As I took him up the stairs to the bathroom, another fan smiled at me and said, "Yeah he was leaking but I didn't know what to say."  Then I noticed the little brown, bum-shaped marks all along the walkway were he was playing.  Nasty and embarrassing.  But mostly nasty.  Unfortunately I didn't have spare clothes for him so I had to scrub out his shorts and shirt in the sink then use at least a million wipes to get him clean.

(*Note: I had picked out cute red, white and blue outfits for everyone but not every appreciated my efforts so that's why people are dressed the way they're dressed)

We walked out of the bathroom just as the fireworks started.   Henry loved them.  I had to carry his poop-stained, public bathroom-cleaned self back to our seats because he was too enthralled with the fireworks to walk.  As I sat down, I heard terrible, horrified screaming.  It was Alice. It was quite the freak out.  She wanted to go home right then.  I've never seen a kid that scared before.  I tried covering her ears and eyes but that just seemed to make it worse.  She was a wreck. Luckily, it was a short show.

Henry, however, cried all the way home because he wanted more fireworks and then refused to come inside once we got home because he wanted more fireworks.

That was our hot, happy, and tear-filled day.  (Rex also threw a tantrum about being thirsty and hungry the second he walked into the ball park).

More Summer

Summer is about half way over and we're about half way through our summer bucket list.

We picked blackberries in our backyard one night, then Greg made wild black berry jam.  This was not fun.  Wild black berries are very prickly and tiny and mixed with lots of humid sweat, nasty southern bugs, and poison ivy.

We made s'mores one nigh.  Again, very sweaty and humid day.

 I got these out of my garden!  $80 for a shirt full of peppers that went bad in my fridge before I could eat them.

 Shaved ice!

 Greg found 200 Nerf darts on Amazon for $12.  Two Prime days later this happened.

 Meanwhile, I as their nurturing mother, read the BFG to the kids.  Then we went to the movie.  Luckily we had the theater to ourselves, so Henry ran around while the rest of us watched. I'll admit, I liked the book WAAAAAYYYY better than the movie.  I actually got pretty bored during the movie and kind of wanted to join Henry in his seat hopping.

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 We spent a very short, hot evening doing archery in the back yard.  I was trying to challenge my inner Katniss, but, um, failed.

 Then last week we hit up Cow Appreciation Day.  Henry did not want to look at the camera.

 Zora dressed up too but she didn't get a free meal.  LAME!!

 Then just this week, we had an outdoor movie night.  We skipped the projector on the house and just took the TV outside so we could start the movie before sunset and still get in bed just around bedtime.

Zora's Blessing

On her 3rd week birthday, we blessed Zora.  It also happened to be Father's Day.  Ok, it didn't just happen to be Father's Day.  I intentionally chose Father's Day because I thought it would be sweet for her father to bless her on Father's Day.  I was not disappointed.  I don't normally get emotional about baby blessings because for some reason I always have babies when we have 9 o'clock church and I'm just excited/stressed/exhausted/happy that I made it to church on time with a 3 week old baby (actually, my babies are usually less than 2 weeks old when we bless them so my parents don't have to fly out here twice).  But Zora's blessing was just a little more special.  Not that Greg said anything outstanding.  It was your standard baby blessing but it just felt more special.  Maybe because I'm nearing the end of my child bearing and Zora may very well be our last child (we have yet to decide so don't go getting all crazy.  It's like the second coming at this point, only God knows whether we'll have more or not) and I was just trying to soak in the last of our baby days, who knows, but it was a special blessing and I really wanted time to stand still on that day.

In fact, I still want time to stand still.  I want to have a baby, a 2-year-old, a 4-year-old, and a 7-year-old forever, but I don't want to have a million kids in order to do that.  Aside from Zora and her near-constant crying (she's getting better), life is pretty perfect.  OK, not perfect but I really enjoy the ages of all my children and just want to be in this stage forever where my biggest worry is Henry peeing on the floor and a kid not playing the game Rex wants to play at school.  These are trials I'm willing to bear.  I do not want older kids with real problems, or kids over the age of 8 who are accountable.  That stresses me out.  I also feel like this is the time of my life that I have looked forward to and planned for for my entire life.  Being a mom is always having a baby and a 2-year-old.  If you don't have an infant, you are obviously no longer a mother and your children don't need you.

I guess what I'm saying is, I'm just really enjoying life right now.  I'm 2 weeks behind on ironing; no body had clean underwear last week; I found 2 Tupper ware of hairy grapes in my fridge last week; and there are about 3 packages of Goldfish on the floor of my van, but it's ok.  One day I'll be caught on the cleaning but then I won't have a baby, and toddler, and preschooler, and a sweet sweet boy.  I'll have a house of snotty teenagers and I can wait a million years for that.

Speaking of teenagers and since this is also the Father's Day post, I have to apologize to my dad:

When I was in middle school and high school, my dad commuted from Tracy to Palo Alto every day, which, depending on traffic, was a 2 hour drive each way.  Eventually, a train came to Tracy and he took that but it also added a bit to his commute.  He left the house every morning around 5 am and got home after 6 pm.  Take that in a for a minute: he was either driving to or at work for 13 hours a day and on many days had just enough time to eat dinner before running to church, as he was also the bishop.

Of course, as a bratty teenager, I had no respect for his feelings or just how exhausted he was for the entire 9 years we lived in Tracy or gratitude for all the bread-winning he was doing.  Nearly every night when he got home from work, I'd be waiting for him to help me with my math homework.  He'd walk in, Dad I need help.  I don't get this.  And this whine and that whine until he helped me.  And then, about half the time, especially in middle school, I'd end up crying and yelling at him because it was his fault that my teachers didn't do a good job teaching me and he only remembered how to do stuff with his computer because, honestly, who draws pie charts by hand when there's every computer program ever to do it for you?  But still, every night, there was he with pencil in his hand (he can't think without a pencil in his hand), helping me with my math homework.

And now I have to help Rex with his homework.  He's not to the point where his homework is actually difficult, it's just annoying but having to sit with him while he does it....shoot me.

So Dad, I'm sorry.  I'm sorry I didn't let you sit down for 10 seconds after sitting in traffic for 2 hours.  I'm sorry for blaming all my math problems on you.  I'm sorry for crying all the time while doing math.  I'm sorry I got older than 7.  I'm just sorry.

But I did get a 5 on the AP Calculus test and managed to pull a B+ in Honors Calculus at BYU.  And I still remember that for every unknown, I need an equation.  So thanks Dad, even though, because of you, I also cannot think math without a pencil in my hand.

Is this not perfection in a picture?

I mean really, how could you not just melt when your 4-year-old looks at your 3-week-old like that?

My sorry attempt to get a good picture of the blessing dress

Grandma Pattie made this cute blessing dress

Ok, I'm actually really mad about this picture.  I mean I found a skirt that fit me, curled my hair, coordinated my outfit with Alice and Zora, and I couldn't stand with my legs together like a lady for a decent picture?!?

The men folk who stood in the circle to bless Zora

everyone minus our photographer Erick.

First family picture

You know I can't resist a chance to spend way too much time, effort and energy on setting a table.  I was really pleased with how this turned out and then I got to fill my house with flowers after.  It was great.

I had to do an close up of this vintage Pyrex bowl.  I have dibs on all of my grandma's Pyrex bowls, but my wonderful neighbor Becky Wheatley also knows how much I love them so gave me this one she found at Goodwill.  That is true love there, because I would have kept the bowl for myself.  Best neighbor ever.