Quote of the day

Miles: "Mom, when is my birthday?"

Mom: "November"

Miles: "Yeahvember!"

Quote of the Day that is leaving Jake sleeping on the couch...

(I have a beautiful friend, Darleen, who is also very pregnant, with whom I was talking in the hall at church.)

Jake after church: "Man I really wanna see you and Darleen Sumo wrestle."

Pause while he absorbs the astonished look on my face.

"Not because you're fat."

"Uh, because you're not..."

Well, do you want me to exercise or not? Make up your mind!

At each of my recent doctor's appointments, after checking my weight and noticing great strides, my Dr. proceeds to remind me that pregnant women can exercise just like everyone else. "Don't let pregnancy stop you from keeping active and doing things like you did before. Just no scuba diving and no skiing."
Well, I'm not skiing, but I do walk to school each day and walk home with the kids, I clean my own house, I do all my own grocery shopping and gardening and I have 2 flights of stairs to carry laundry up and down. I take the kids to the pool and the park, we play hopscotch in the front yard, we play nerf guns in the back, and I still "race" Miles just about everywhere we go during the day. I'm doing pretty well.

Each afternoon after school and homework, we go next door and I watch the kids jump on the trampoline.



Each time they beg me to jump with them, but it just doesn't look all that comfortable, so I decline. Well, last week when they offered, I thought, "Why not? My doctor said to stay active."



It wasn't all that bad. It was actually pretty good exercise and we were having a great time (keep in mind, I'm jumping with Miley on there so I'm taking it very very easy), until...


(Jenny must have thought this was too good to pass up because she took all these photos. This is not the actual incident, but I'm sure the look on my face is the same)

I tripped, landed on my bum just as everyone else landed on their feet, double bounced Lucy, who flew about 6 feet into the air, only to come crashing down feet-first on my stomach. It hurt. A lot. Two hours later I was still having contractions, the baby wasn't moving much, and paranoid me was worrying about everything that could possibly be going on, so I caved and called my doctor.

Let me say, he used great self control and didn't laugh out loud, but just barely. He asked a few questions, told me what to keep an eye out for, and finished with, "Oh, and Alison, stay off the trampoline." I got a little annoyed and replied, "Hey, you told me to exercise!" He again, used his self control, lucky for him, and said, "I never said anything about any trampoline."

I just know that whatever dinner party he was at was shortly after entertained by a story about his idiot patient who was bouncing with all her kids on a trampoline at 7 months pregnant.



Hey, it was fun while it lasted!

Just what I needed

So, as I wrote earlier, I've been feeling really frustrated at the amount of things I'm actually accomplishing. At the end of each day, I find myself asking, "Did I do anything today that won't have to be redone tomorrow or next week?" Usually the answer is "no". Dinner will need to be prepared tomorrow, those clothes will get dirty again and end up in my basement before next Friday, floors to be swept, bums to be wiped, bills to be paid, and on and on. Occasionally I will finish a project like sewing a quilt or painting a piece of furniture or framing a picture and feel great about finally doing something that lasts. Jake gets to do that every day with his art and I suppose I was feeling like it was my turn to be creative instead of being Cinderella.

Enter Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf.

I attended the General Relief Society Broadcast last night and as I listened to him speak, I realized that he was talking to me. He spoke about being creative and making an environment that is beautiful. He talked about creating a life filled with beauty and helpfulness, smiles, and teaching.

I do that! When I teach Tate that capital letters go at the beginning of a sentence and clothes go in a hamper, or explain to Miles why hitting your sibling in the face makes them want to not play with you, or show Lucy how to make her own bed and what to do about the mean girl on the playground, when I show them that serving others makes us feel fantastic, these things will (someday) stick! Hopefully they will take it all and teach it to their kids.

During lunch yesterday, the kids and I had a very impromptu discussion about their role in the pre-existence, how they fought for the right and wanted desperately to come here and be tested. I can't remember how it started, but at the end of our conversation, I could see that Tate and Lucy had soaked up a good sized portion of what was said. They understood just a little bit more what they're doing here and who they really are. That will last. Way longer than any quilt or chair.

Or painting of Jake's for that matter.

It's hard work being 2

What do you do after you dump out every toy in the house, steal all the candy corns from the bowl, spill (dump on purpose) chocolate milk all over the upholstered chair in the living room, eat stuff out of the garbage, drag mom's frying pan all over the gravel driveway, sneak away and hide in the church while your mom's teaching a class, paint a peanut butter picture on the floor, and write a cryptic message in toothpaste on the sink? What do you do after all that?



Why, you take a nap of course! It's hard work being 2.

How do you keep a 5 year old from whining while you're cooking dinner?

You let her help with the Family Home Evening lesson.



The m&m's were game pieces for our Prophet Jeopardy that night.

I'm starting to panic.

I haven't felt it until this week. December 5th seemed like lightyears away until now. I don't know why, but it has suddenly dawned on me that I'm having a 4th child. I think I put up a wall of denial to protect myself after all of those miscarriages, but suddenly it's crumbled and the terrifying truth has settled in. Maybe it's the teeny tiny house that has not one extra inch for a crib. Maybe it's the one bathroom, or the impending winter that caused me to spend a nauseating amount of money on snow boots this week. Maybe it's the lack of sleep from which I'm already suffering at the hands of my youngest "night wanderer" in search of more of Lucy's Chocolate Pills.
Whatever it is, I'm scared. I know the pioneers did it with 19 kids, an oxen, and a bag of wheat, but truly, I'm not a pioneer. I'd be dead right now if I was.
I have a whole list of things that need done, a list of what I want done, and a list of things that will never in a million years get done, but they taught me to set high goals in Young Women's, so by-golly, I'm setting those goals!
I need help. Real help. I need a husband who's home on more than Sundays. I need my mommy. Heck, if I could just have my s-i-l, Leslie, here for 2 or 3 days, I could get it all done, buy a slurpee and go for a pedicure. Hey Les, whatcha doin' tomorrow?

What happens when you plant a seed?

Well, if you live in Arizona as I did most of my life, the seed grows an inch or two, gets a good sear on all sides, and then it gives up the ghost.
Here in Connecticut, however, if you plant a seed, sometimes it turns into FOOD!



Tate planted this bad boy and viola! A pumpkin!

What does Canada have that we don't?

Jake! He's been gone for 3 days now and I realize how spoiled I am to have a hunny that doesn't travel much. He left Friday before the kids were even awake, and won't be home until Monday night, but it's not been nearly as bad as I thought it would be even though Miles asks "where's Daddy?" every 30 minutes.
Yesterday was filled with stomp rockets, paper airplanes, and a picnic at the park. There was an Ice Cream Social after school on Friday, we've watched many many old episodes of He-Man, and we've consumed an alarming amount of Mac-n-cheese, chocolate milk, and hotdogs.
We also ventured to Costco where we got to see an honest to goodness fist fight right in front of us in the checkout line. (Gotta get out of this ghetto called Greenwich!) My kids were dumbstruck, so I used it as an opportunity to point out why we learn manners and self-control in Elementary school so as not to humiliate ourselves later in life.
We spent this afternoon going for a walk, reading books, and picking out clothes for next week.
Sometimes it's kind of nice to lower our standards for a weekend. The house has been a little grimier, the kids have gotten to stay up a little later, and all meals have been prepared in under 4 minutes, but just think how much more we'll appreciate it when Jake finally returns.

On a side note, and to fulfill all boring journal writing requirements for posterity, we've started something new with this school year. Since Jake doesn't get home until almost bed-time during the school year, we were having to eat dinner without him. That was no fun at all and we missed him spending time with us at the table, so we've started having family breakfast together instead of dinner. The other reason for this had something to do with several times last year where someone would announce on the way to school that they forgot to eat breakfast.
Anyway, I get up every morning before 6, shower, get myself all ready, and head down to make breakfast. At about 6:45, I holler up the stairs for everyone to get ready (I may throw in a threat or two about no food) and I finish cooking and making the lunches. As the kids come down (only after being fully dressed, with a clean room and made bed), they help set the table and we all sit down to eat. I'm putting most of my culinary effort into breakfast these days, and so far, everyone (including me) loves it. They're full longer, we don't eat cold cereal anymore except on Saturdays, and nobody "forgets" to eat. I've had to invent an entire menu of food so we don't have any repeats in a month, but it's been lots of fun.
Here's Monday of last week:



By the way, Cynthia, you will forever be a rock star in my children's eyes for giving me the recipe for your orange rolls.

Quote of the Day

From Sunday after Lucy gave a talk in Primary:

Dad: "So, Lucy, how did it go?"

Lucy: "Good. But nobody threw flowers!"

You know you've hit the big time when...

That's right! Jake's work has officially become well known enough to adorn the bodies of truly obsessed fans. This girl just emailed him to show off her true devotion to his work. His mother will be so proud.

Why don't I have a nice photo of my kids?

My mom's been requesting a nice frame-able picture of my kids for some time. There's a reason I don't take them to a photographer. It's the same reason I don't take my minivan into the mechanic and demand he make it handle like a BMW, or I don't go into the hairstylist and say "give me hair like Jenny McCarthy." If I asked for a decent photo of my kids, the photographer would spend an hour with them and tell me "Sorry, they just don't do that!"
I can't even get them to all look non-alien at the same time for me when it's FREE!














It's not that they're not cute or that I can't get them to look fine one at a time, it's the all at the same time part that's killing me.

However, we did have quite a fun time at the park trying. They got bored of smiling though, and wanted to run "super fast".







Poor Miles likes to run but sometimes collapses in a heap for no apparent reason. If you ask him about it, he'll tell you, "I'm dead."



This happens fairly often.







Apparently, it's contagious.



So, no Mom, I don't have a good picture for you. Maybe you can get Jake to draw one.

Yet another place I can never show my face again...

I ruined my skirt last week, and as it was one of the only two things that fit me right now, I was forced to go out in search of some fat girl clothes. I took Miles and headed over to the giant maternity store in White Plains, where they have a play area in the middle of the store. It's great because the kids can play in the middle while the moms shop and can keep them in sight the whole time.
Well, I hauled an armload of clothes into the dressing room, ready to see if I could fit anything over my ever-expanding middle and left Miles to play in the middle. These aren't normal dressing rooms, mind you. They're cubicles right in the middle of the store, with only curtains, not doors. Let me add here, that there were 11 men in business suits roaming the store, talking, trying to decide what to do with an adjoining vacant store. I'm the only customer. So, me, Miles, two sales ladies, and 11 business men. How much trouble could Miley get in while I'm standing 10 feet away, peeking at him every 30 seconds?
Well, I'd tried on several things and was in between dresses, standing there in just my underwear, when suddenly I hear, "Hey Mom, guess what!" really loudly. A little too loudly. I spin around to see that he has the curtain ALL the way open, hollering loud enough to get the attention of the sales ladies and all those men. Yes, my friends, there I was in my unmentionables, the size of Rhode Island, and 13 strangers are staring at me.
I shreiked, grabbed the little booger by the neck, yanked him into the cubicle with me, and slammed the curtain shut. I quickly gathered up my things and slunk out of the store without making eye contact with anyone. I can only imagine what those men were laughing about as I made my hasty retreat. I now have to steer clear of that store, as well as a good portion of White Plains, just in case. Thanks Miles.

Soaking up the last of Summer

I found them this way. None of the "costuming" was my doing; they picked it out and headed outside to enjoy one of the last warm afternoons of the year.



Miles needs to brush up on his Superhero Lingo apparently, because for some reason, Superman was jumping off everything in sight, yelling, "To infinity and BEYOND!"



Lucy's dress got stuck on the handlebar and, being the genius that we all know and love, it took her a while to get unstuck.











All in all, they got very tired, enjoyed the outdoors, and weren't messing up the clean house. A very good afternoon.

Conversation in the Costco elevator...

Lucy: "Mom, do elves really have pointy ears?"
Mom: "Yep"
Lu: "Really?"
Mom: "Well, you know that elves aren't real, right? They're like fairies or pixies, just pretend. But yeah, in pretend, they have pointy ears." (thinking conversation to be over at this point)

...elapsed time of 20ish seconds while Lucy ponders...

Lu: "So, does Santa make all the presents by himself?"

Huh? Oh crud, shoot, panic, uh.....

Mom: "Heh heh, well, of course those elves are real. I just meant all the other ones from books and television are pretend. Heh heh"
Lu: "Oh"
Mom: "And, yes, those ones have pointy ears."

Starting the day out right...

First thing every morning (except during winter), I open the front door so the sunshine and fresh air can com through the screen. Some cute friend(s) of ours left us a little surprise on our front door last night.



I know it's too small to read, but they say things like "Families Are Forever" and "We love you Parkers!" What a great way to start the day. Thanks whoever you are!

Until next year, Granny!

Once more for this summer, we ventured out to Granny's house in Long Island. I hate that she leaves each year. If only we lived closer to her winter home. The kids had a grand time with her.
"George" made an appearance again,



we went to see Lighthouse Point Park,










and practiced our flying.





We stopped along the road on the ride home to pick raspberries. The season was almost over, but the kids thought it was the coolest thing ever. Miles picked anything and everything, even if it had no color yet. Everyone had their entire basket eaten by the time we got home.

We enjoyed our second weekend in a row with Jake, especially since it was our last with him until December.



Good bye Honey. Have fun drawing!