anyways, short story... we came back from atlanta on friday the 18th. the kids did great on the flight and all went really well. they were even precious in the airport waiting for our bags and everything. it was a good day but a very very long day and we were exhausted. the kids' big suitcase actually got carried in our door and was dropped on the floor right in the middle of the back door, the laundry room door, and the door to the bathroom. and then it stayed there for i don't even know how many days.
saturday morning i can't remember really what happened... probably we all just tried to hang out and get unpacked. at noon, i went to lunch with our camp cook committee at a little thai place in the downtown historic district on mainstreet parker. it was really good. we just talked about how things went at camp and what to do for next year. then i went to the grocery store to pick up milk and food. after i got home, we got the kids ready and elle came over. we all went to lollipop park which is a fun little indoor amusement park. every year i think about having a birthday party for abigail but talk myself out of it because that's totally not my thing. but we took abigail and elle together as a little birthday celebration and it was a lot of fun. we bought a wristband for brady too and he went on basically everything the girls did. so much fun. we got back by 8 but were all so exhausted. elle went home and i got the kids to bed while christopher started writing my talk for church (don't judge... i had a lot going on and cripple foot husband that couldn't do a whole lot). i'd been excited to get home so brady could go back to sleeping like his ususal and not be so clingy to me. well... wasn't happening. he took forever to go to bed. it was midnight when i finished praying and i'd already set my alarm to wake up early and finish writing my talk and practice it. but as soon as i finished praying, i just felt like i should do it right then. i spent over three hours finishing my talk. i added personal experiences and what christopher had written (mostly the quotes and doctrinal stuff), i made my own. and then i practiced it and timed it. i didn't get to bed til close to four i think. and i still woke up at 6:30 so i would have enough time in the morning to do everything i needed to.
sunday went well. somehow my morning got filled with other things and i didn't actually look at or practice my talk at all. christopher read over it for me though and said it was excellent, which was the highlight of my day because he doesn't give compliments unless he means them, and typically his compliments don't include the words "excellent" and "perfect" and "i wouldn't change a single thing." his only advice was that i make sure not to talk to softly... and i'm happy to report that i did just great on that front. also, i loved hearing compliments from people afterwords... just people telling me that it was just what they needed to hear. i know how much i benefit from other peoples' talks so it made me feel good to be able to be on the other end of that for once. i spent the second two hours of church in nursery with brady. it was pretty uneventful except that brady was terrified of this little [big] girl in there who literally just turned 18 months. the girl reminds me of paisley nef. anyways... brady was terrified. after church we all napped and then nothing else really happened i don't think.
monday through friday was pretty much just all sorts of bad, bad, bad. y'know those days where everything is going wrong and everything is getting on your nerves and just nothing is right at all? that was happening to me all day... day after day after day. except tuesday... tuesday was actually pretty good. brady was being so crazy clingy and crying and screaming if i wasn't holding him... he wasn't taking a nap unless i was napping with him... or if i spent an hour getting him to nap in his crib, he would wake up crying anywhere from 10-40 minutes later. at night it would take up to an hour and a half to get him to bed. and then he would wake up during the night too. one evening i was soooo exhausted, i told christopher i wanted both kids in bed by 8... which we actually managed to do since we started the bedtime routine at like 6:30 or something. after the kids went to bed, i was doing cleaning and laundry and then went to bed... and not long after i'd fallen asleep, maybe 11:45? ... abigail woke up crying and wanted me to lay with her. which i did... half sleeping... for about an hour. and as i was about to fall asleep in my own bed... brady started crying. and for the next three hours, i tried to get that kid to sleep. well, i could get him to sleep just fine... but then escaping his bedroom was something i could never manage successfully. i rocked him in his rocking chair, i pretended to lay in his crib with him, i laid on the rails of his crib with my hand on his back, i laid on the floor by his crib and put my hand through the crib slats, i laid in his toddler bed with him while he continually stood up, fell on my face, and tried to get comfortable... and then i finally moved his toddler bed mattress to the floor by his crib so i had a more comfortable place to lay while i stuck my hand through the rails. it would take at least 30 minutes for him to fall asleep, only to have him wake up crying within seconds of me leaving his bedroom. i even tried letting him cry it out for a while. no go. anyways, by 4am, i was asleep in my bed. and awake less than three hours later to start my day. i know now that brady's trouble sleeping on our trip wasn't so much travel related (duh, i should have known this since he did great at the ranch/cabin/snowbird on our utah trip just a few weeks prior) as it is teething... which is a long and bumpy road for brady. like 4-6 weeks. anyways, naps have been short, night time sleep interrupted, mornings coming far earlier than usual.... it's been a blast. especially since brady only wants me... 24/7 and needs to be held and comforted all day long. so... it was a bad week. not just because of the kids though... it was everything. i even had two bad experiences at walmart in the same day and i NEVER have bad experiences at walmart. and [maybe for the first time ever] one night, i was up past midnight (because that was my only chance to get anything done) hot gluing toys back together when the dryer finished the load of laundry. i decided to fold it and put it away right then so it wouldn't wrinkle and so i wouldn't have to worry about it the next day. sweeeeet... for the first time since being home, i'll have every single bit of laundry completely done... even sheets and towels and kitchen rags and everything. so i'm putting abigails clothes in her drawers when i notice a smell and go to check on her in bed. yup, no diaper on that kid and she and the bed are drenched. awesome, let's strip the girl and the bed and start a new load of laundry at 12:30 in the morning. i wasn't thrilled about life at that point in time. so yeah, the whole week was like that. minus tuesday. tuesday we went to the pool with shaylee and jodi and their girls and brady was actually enjoying the water. and then i think abigail played with the neighbor girls or something? i can't remember but i do know it was a good day. the following day though was back to rough and by the late afternoon i just was standing in our greatroom with a fussy brady on my hip while i lamented to abigail that sometimes i just don't know what to do! so we literally just walked straight out the door and started driving. we got gas in the car and then went to the library. i didn't even care that brady had no shoes and abigail was wearing mismatched pj's and that we were there just 24 hours before. i know all the librarians know us and recognize us and were probably fully aware that we were there two nights in a row and this time looking even more haggard than the last but that's okay. it saved us. the library is our happy place. the week was just really really really rough.
and friday night was dinner and july birthday celebrations (abigail, brian, and hallie) with the hilliers. that part was fun.
saturday we did a whole lot of nothing and then ran errands as a family. abigail and i ran in walmart while christopher stayed in the car with a passed out brady. we fed the missionaries and they were super nice and non-awkward. at the end, one asked if he could do my dishes for me. i literally laughed out loud in his face and gave him a solid NO. which took him off guard and made him start laughing too. for some reason it was all hilarious to me. christopher did the dishes instead. i love having him do the dishes anyways, but especially since he's had his hurt ankle (he injured it pretty bad playing basketball while i was at my grandparents' house and has been hobbling around since) because he can't get around well and or do a whole lot. but dishes... he can definitely still do those.
sunday i slept in and didn't wake up til 45 minutes after my alarm. christopher was at ward council so really it's just amazing that i didn't end up sleeping even later. anyways, none of us really had breakfast and we were probably ten minutes late to church but it was all fine in the end. i subbed in nursery. they asked for volunteers during the week and i figured i was going to be there both hours with brady anyways. so it was good to be in there but brady still clung to me although he was not as afraid of the chubby girl as before. i'm subbing again next week too... brady shows no signs of adjusting better but i am seriously dying with all the relief society [and sunday school] lessons i'm missing out on. it's killing me.
monday, brady decided to wake up at 6:45 so he took at early (and short) nap and then we went to jodi's for her to fix my mullet. emmy and i had a little too much craziness cutting my hair that last night at the beach that i somehow ended up with a mullet. i lived with the mullet for over two weeks to see if it blended with time... it didn't. i got compliments on my haircut, but i felt like i was always having to be careful with the way my hair was sitting on my shoulders etc so the mullet wouldn't be so visible. anyways, jodi cut off even more of my hair and now i don't have a mullet anymore but i think i'm officially in the "she's got short, shoulder length hair" description if i ever go missing. christopher says he likes it but wouldn't go shorter. i'm grateful for this experience because now i for sure know that i prefer longer hair. and jodi cut brady's hair too. i somewhat cut his hair in the bath tub but he lost patience with me and by the end, he was running around the bathtub while i chased him with sharp scissors pointed at his head. so i had to stop and he had his own weird haircut for a few days. ; ) we're a little lax on our appearances, can you tell?
tuesday, abigail and lucy played together all day, back and forth from house to house. i used to worry because it seemed like abigail loooooved playing with lucy but that lucy didn't really care for abigail. well, that's long gone now because it's clear that both girls are obsessed with one another. abigail is always talking about going to lucy's house and lucy's mom has confirmed with me that lucy asks to play with abigail within five seconds of waking up.
and today is wednesday the 30th. all day was rainy and cold. my new visiting teacher came over. i love her and had fun hanging out with her for a bit. i love too that abigail and brady and i were all still in pj's when she came and my house wasn't clean (last minute, she asked if she could come 30 minutes earlier than we'd scheduled) and it was just fine. abigail informed her of our pj party (she's been really into those lately although we're having trouble deciding what happens besides just wearing pjs)... we'd been reading books and just hadn't gotten around to starting our day yet. after visiting teaching, i put brady down for a nap (hallelujah that he's been falling asleep in less than ten minutes and all i have to do is lay on the floor by his crib and hold his hand through the crib slats) and showered and got ready. brady woke up and cried and clung and fussed and then lucy came over. we left by 2 to meet honey at the office and then from there, went to the aquarium. they were supposed to have a summer company party this afternoon at a park. playing games and hanging out and eating food. but this is the coldest weather week i possibly ever recall experiencing and today, it was low 60's and raining all day long. so, plan b was the aquarium and a mexican restaurant and it all turned out just great. we all got home super exhausted and craving our warm beds. brady once again fell asleep in less than ten minutes and honey and i watched two episodes of impractical jokers before bed. i have a short attention span with tv but not with this show. every episode has me crying from laughing out loud so hard. guilty pleasure.
so anyways, the days are getting better and hopefully in a few weeks when brady's teeth are all in, life will feel like normal again! although maybe not because summer is almost over (it's been so cool though, i feel like i'm still waiting for it to arrive!) and abigail will be starting preschool. hold my hand and coach me through this. i'm not ready. i don't want my kids to go to school. k... not thinking about it right now. we're just enjoying some fun rainy weather this week and we'll wait to go to the pool next week. it's great.
other notables:
since it was cold, abigail went swimming in our master bathtub... with her dive rings and goggles. she was thiiiiis close to putting her face under water but kept chickening out and no amount of bribing would change her mind. she's now informed me that she'll put her face under the water and take swimming lessons when she's five. anyone have any great ideas?
i crossed something huge off of my bucket list.... yesterday was a beautiful and chilly overcast day and I MADE BREAD. my first time ever making anything requiring yeast. it was so simple and even though it didn't rise as much as it should (i've been thinking it over and i think part of the problem was during the first rising when i left it uncovered and let the heat escape) and wasn't super pretty... but it was delicious and HOLY COW I ACTUALLY MADE BREAD! it was the honey wheat bread from the blendtec cookbook. it called for only simple ingredients (yeast was the craziest thing on the list) and the instructions were so easy to follow. the only downside was that i ate at least half a loaf in the first two hours after it came out of the oven. whoops.
i know i already mentioned it but brady holds my hand at night while he falls asleep. he can roll around and get comfortable but instantly grabs my hand again to hold. tonight he switched from his back to his belly and for a second was holding my hand with both of his... heaven forbid should he let go of my hand so he doubled up while he made the switch. he's grown up so much in the past week. he climbs up and down from his highchair all the time when he wants a snack. he feeds himself really well with a fork/spoon. he cleans up toys and spills more. his speech is clearer and his vocabulary is growing rapidly. his physical coordination is improving by leaps and bounds. he's into doing grown up and big kid things and is more and more copying the things he sees others do. he has an interest in tv and will sit with abigail to watch. he's started pointing to his diaper and signaling to me when he's about to poop. he rubs the soap by himself when he gets his hands washed. but don't worry... he still laughs his "huh" to signify "yes." i'm going to be super super sad when he actually starts saying "yes" and "no"... then he will have really grown up.
