I love the school schedules around here. I don't mind starting school back at the end of July because it means two week breaks in Oct, Dec, and March, among other breaks. In Utah, I remember getting really burned out during the school year with so few days off and then bored in the long summer, so I love this schedule.
There's not a whole lot to report about it, I guess. I had a goal to take a picture every day the second week of the break after I replaced our old camera battery. The first day, that meant getting the kids ready for bed and realizing I hadn't taken any pictures. :) Bryce snuggles the heck out of Gabe, and Gabe...tolerates it.
The kids went to the dentist this week. It was eventful and there was good and bad news for each kid. Gabe and Bryce have clean teeth, no decay, but one of Bryce's teeth recently suffered some sort of trauma and got a big chip in it. From the x-ray it looks like it may die and I'd be sad about that. It's his front tooth and he's got such a cute little smile. I'm just imagining his smile looking even more mischievous with a missing tooth! For Gabe, his thumb-sucking is already doing dental damage. Honestly, when I see him smile I can totally tell he is a thumb-sucker from his teeth. But the dentist said it's worse than he likes to see and that we should break him of the habit. At first, I thought he was crazy, but I think it's doable. As I've said, Gabe is adaptable. So Marty and I are pondering if we are going to do it and how to go about it. If we do it, it has to be now because I'm not going to further traumatize him just as a new baby is coming into the family. For Brynn, she has textbook alignment both in her baby teeth and the teeth coming in (from the view of the x-ray). Hopefully she'll take after Marty and not me. But she has two cavities to fill.
We spent a lot of time at the library and I was so happy to see this sight over and over. Brynn has suddenly gained this greater confidence and even in just the last couple weeks her reading has totally taken off. I love passing her room to hear her reading and not asking for help. I especially love it because of how often Bryce gets sucked in.
Brynnie-Pie got a hair-cut. That'll teach her to keep her gum in her mouth!
Of Brynn's favorite things to do, dancing remains close to the top. We saw a resurgence in "sparkly and squishy" princesses over Spring Break.
We had lots of play dates, which was wonderful because most of Brynn's friends are in AM kindergarten so it's been hard to get together with them this year.
Here is Brynn looking for dinosaur bones. Since pretty much forever, if you asked Brynn what she wanted to be when she grew up she'd say an artist. Sometimes it was an artist and a forest ranger, or an artist and an author, but recently she just wants to be a paleontologist. I remember wanting to be one, too. What little kid doesn't dream of digging around in the mud all day looking for cool stuff like dinosaur bones?
She found a diplodocus nose, and a few other things. :)
The second week of Spring Break was spent pretty much on my own with the kiddos. Marty had a big missionary prep camp-out for the young men that he's been working on for quite a while. So besides the days he was gone at the camp-out, he also had to check out of life for a while just trying to put the whole thing together (he's ambitious). It sounds like it was a wonderful experience and I'm proud of him.
Since I wasn't going to have the van, I figured we'd all just live on our bikes and use those to take us anywhere. So the very first morning on our own we all headed out to the "big park," which is farther away but the kids love it. Half-way there Brynn's bike chain fell off, but I put it back on and it wasn't really a big deal. Then we stayed at the park way too long (I had a good book) and got hot and sunburned and I realized we all had to ride our bikes all the way back home. Right after we got started Brynn's bike chain fell off again and this time I couldn't get it back on. I was trying to calculate in my mind how long it would take Brynn to walk it back, when a friendly police officer came to the rescue. It took him quite a while, but he got it back on, showed me where the bike was broken and why it was just going to keep coming off, gave the kids some hats, lectured me about the fact that no one was wearing a helmet, and left. About five feet later it came off again. So I had the delightful pleasure of, at eight months pregnant, hauling home on the bike/trailer: myself and my bun in the oven, Gabe, Brynn, Brynn's bike, all the water bottles, books, and everything else we brought to the park. Bryce at regular intervals stopped and said he was too tired and he wasn't going to ride anymore. Did I mention how delightful it all was? When we finally got back I could hardly even walk my bike up the driveway to the garage and I decided it would be the couch for me the rest of the afternoon, but then there was lunch. Faced with the prospect of feeding a bunch of hot, hungry, whiny (but delightful) children, I wanted to cry. But I lucked out and my friend I'd been texting through all this showed up on the doorstep a few minutes later with Chinese take-out and it turned out to be just what I needed to regain my sanity. :) Thanks, Lindsey!
The rest of the days Marty was gone were pretty un-eventful. I'd been nesting like crazy the week before, cleaning out closets and cabinets and doing random projects I couldn't get out of my mind in the middle of the night. I wanted to try to get a lot done before he left so that I'd make sure not to do anything stupid and over-do it and go into labor without him (I didn't know the bike ride was stupid when we left!). So we mostly chilled. I had bought a bunch of frozen food, and we had stocked up at the library. We haven't gotten movies at the library for a long time because it's so easy to rack up a fine with them (and we just don't need them). But I told the kids to consider it Christmas and go pick out any movies they wanted. By the end of the week Marty's side of the bed was completely full of kid's books, coloring books, extra pillows, and candy wrappers. Honestly, it was relaxing. The only places we went were to meet up with friends at the park, and then we got Brynn an Easter dress. Other than that it was a whole lot of playing and snuggling.
I missed Marty like crazy (I promise, Marty!), but the kids were so sweet and everything was so smooth that I just couldn't help but feel like we were receiving some extra help from above. I know sometimes we have to step into the refiner's fire too, but it was a tender mercy I really needed at the time. I especially noticed because it was like as soon as Marty was back, Gabe was back to being a 15-moth old baby (I hardly remember a single tear from him the whole time Marty was gone), Brynn and Bryce started fighting again, and my energy was totally depleted. Anyway, I really am grateful for the whole experience and for the reminder that Heavenly Father is aware of me and showed His hand in a simple way in my life.
By the way, Marty came back a comical color of red-brown. I knew he wouldn't use the sunscreen! He took care of all the stuff, took a shower, snuggled and read with the kids, and then took a nap. I woke him up for dinner (that is to say, to go get dinner) and he was not the same Marty I sent away. He groaned any time he bent down, was having a hard time holding the kids, and was having a hard time keeping up with the conversation. Honestly, he kind of reminded me of Pregnant Emily and I wondered if that's what I'm like to live with for nine months? :) Apparently he got some wrong information from people when he took his trip down to Tucson to scout out locations, and the hikes were a little (or a lot) more than they bargained for!
So now it's the second day Brynn's been back in school. I miss her. I really do. It's nice to have her at school too, because I can put the boys down for their naps and have at least a full hour to myself for whatever. But the whole two weeks she was here I'd tell her to play for a while and then come hang out with me in my room. I was always so glad to see her come in and we'd read on my bed or talk. And we would do "surprises" which was a coloring game we came up with when I was pregnant with Gabe and she was in preschool. We spent SO much time back then coloring surprises for each other, it felt so great to be able to do it again! She's not the slightest bit sad to go back, though. She is READY.
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