Once More, With FEELING

Here are a couple more videos of the zombie. Upright this time, but more blurry. I give up.

Zombie

Well, Ivy's "walking". I guess it's more of a toddle. And she looks like a zombie would, with her arms sticking out in front of her. It's funny. I took a little video of it the other day, but because I'm a nerd I took it sideways, not realizing I was doing that. So kink your head to the left to watch. And maybe I'll do a re-shoot one of these days, before her zombie state turns into normal walking, but take it with my camera upright. Until then, enjoy my amazing videographing skills, mixed with Ivy's sweet Thriller moves. (I put that video down there, too. She walks kind of like them at 1:10.)

Seven Years and One Day Ago...

...this was me and Pete:


Wow. We're so...young. And skinny.

And this was us two days ago:


Not as young, or as skinny. But still very happy.

Pete surprised me this year with a quick trip back to Logan, which is where we met and married. It was so fun to get away for 24 hours (thanks for watching the kids, Mom-you rock!), and to get kind of nostalgia-ish, visiting our old haunts, and some new ones. We ate at yummy Bluebird for dinner, ate at Old Grist Mill for lunch the next day (we took our food to 1st Dam), walked around the temple and USU campus, talked about our best and worst semesters, watched "The Proposal" (cute and funny, but you get to see almost all of Sandra Bullock), and stayed at the Anniversary Inn in the Oriental Garden room.

A very fun trip, even though I had totally broken out all over my face with huge nasty pimples. I had a big one right between my eyes, too. Seriously, I looked like a unicorn. Like a unicorn with a bad acne breakout all over the rest of its face. Good times with that.

But anyway, thanks, Pete, for getting all crazy and planning our anniversary trip. If the rest of our marriage is as good as the first seven years, then I'm a lucky, lucky girl.

Thoughts

Jakob's jaw is getting bigger, I think, because he's starting to get a gap on the side between his teeth. It probably doesn't help that his front tooth is loose, either. It's kind of Hillbilly-ish.

I took the last of the medicine for my rash on Saturday. This medicine has steroids in it. And seriously? How can anyone in their right mind want to do to their body voluntarily what has just happened to mine? I have the fishbowl head feeling, where I'm just standing there and then all of a sudden I feel like I'm tipping over backwards, yet I know that my body isn't actually moving. I absolutely crash during the day because I'm so tired, but at night when it's time for bed I lie there awake. And then when I do sleep, it's crazy dreams and tossing and turning. And then I'm all shaky, like too much caffeine or something. I don't get why any of that would be ideal, just to get bigger muscles or whatever. Yeah, I'm really hoping all of the side effects go away in the next little bit.

We took the training wheel off Jake's bike. I say wheel, singular, because the other had fallen off before. And I say Jake's bike, even though it was Brock's bike for his birthday. My kids are kind of...transient when it comes to what belongs to whom. After we took the other wheel off, Jakob started yelling and pedalling as fast as he could up and down the street. "Yeah! This is awesome! Woo-hoo!" a la Leonardo DiCaprio on Titanic ("I'm king of the world!")

I'm trying a new motto: cease to be idle. It's kind of working.

I can't decide which animal Brock is most like. He's like a squirrel, where he hoards away toys in his bed. He's a night owl, for sure.

I've also come to face the reality of laundry every day. Back in the good ol' days of two kids, I could put it off and just do once a week. Now if I wait just once a week, my kids run out of clothes and the pile is almost as tall as I am. This week I realized that I have to do at least a load a day. *sigh* I wonder when a good age is to have your kids start the machines etc. by themselves...

I can't find Ivy's toothbrush. It's probably in our massive mess of toys. Not that I can really perform the actual act of brushing with her. Eating toothpaste is kind of like brushing with toothpaste, right?

We buzzed the boys' hair the other night. Troy looks bald because his hair is getting lighter and his skin is getting darker.

Memo, our killer cat, has brought us many treats in the last couple of days, including two birds. I'm very impressed with her hunting skills. My gag reflex while scooping up said dead birds is very impressed as well.

I love to eat out. If I could, I would eat out once a day. But I would make sure it could get delivered to me. More restaurants should have delivery.

I hope that cat food is an appropriate snack food for little mischievous girls.

I wish that brownies would magically make themselves, like a neverending supply. But they would also change themselves to be different kinds of brownies. Maybe I've been reading too much Harry Potter...nah.

Noteworthy or Not Worthy?

Well, been keeping busy. Some stuff has been eventful, but mostly we've just been hanging out. Pete had last week off, and we started listing-literally-the things we wanted to do as a family. So I wrote stuff on a ratty receipt.

I think we did everything on the list, except go to a drive-in movie, firstly because it's been raining (where are you, warm weather?) and secondly the shows out right now are not ones I'm dying to see. Pete redeemed his birthday massage that I had bought for him, we went swimming at Green Canyon, we took Tuna in to get checked out, Ivy got shots, I picked up the super cute yearly pics from the store, and Jakob started a once-a-week art class.

We also got sick, and the boys got super sunburned:


I've been re-reading Harry Potter-just finished #1. Can't wait for the movie!

Jakob finished Kindergarten. He says he's glad to be done, and I'm both glad and sad that he's done. He's still reading up a storm, and I know I need to harness that this summer so we don't let the skills slip. He and Ila have grown so much! Here's the first day of school (top) and last day (bottom) pics to prove it:


We ate Olive Garden and got it to go; and because I have bad customer service karma, my order got messed up. So I had to take it back, but then got a $15 gift card. Aw, yeah!

And Ivy is starting to take steps without holding on to things. Oh, and I am trying to learn the ways of the baby girl hair, and have done pigtails a couple of times. Knowledge in progress, my friends. (Could you just die from that smile?)

I think it's going to be a good summer.

Just Keep Swimming

I took Dory's advice: I just kept swimming. And now I'm feeling a lot better. I still have my weird rash that in some ways has gotten worse (covering more of my body, itching) but in some ways has gotten better (smaller, lighter bumps).

It kind of makes me sad that I seriously can't handle even our family being sick without me wanting to just throw my hands up to the heavens and say "I quit!" and just drive away and hide for a few days. It makes me wonder what I'll do if/when an actual trial lands at my feet. *sigh*

I've realized, though, that sometimes when you're swimming, you're moving forward, getting places, doing things, and being all Michael Phelps-y (in a non-drug way). Sometimes, you're just treading water, and your muscles are achy and burning, and it's all you can do to keep your head above the water. Other times, you just have to lie back and float for a minute and relax. There are times the water is shallow and you just cautiously wade in, and still other times when you have to jump in the deep end and hope for the best. I think this was one of the tread the water times for me.

So, I kept swimming. And I caught up on laundry (which means I'll have to do more tomorrow, but that's reality), and my kitchen floor got mopped, and my downstairs got dusted and vacuumed. I also went shopping (Pete: "Um, hon, will you return the movies to Hastings? And, take your time. Please." (Meaning: you're being crazy, and you need to get out of the house)). I got some new shorts and a couple of T-shirts, and a new artsy thingy to hang on my kitchen wall. It's weird that shopping made me feel better, because normally I hate to shop. But I think just getting out of the house, being by myself, getting away from the same old, was what did it for me.

But at the end of the day, just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

It's Been a LONG Week

It started with Jakob's sickness. Which spread quickly to Brock. Then Troy, who never actually threw up, but he had a few diaper blowouts. Ivy was next, and she got double lucky with blowouts and the barfies.

Next was me. Yee-haw. It's one thing to take care of sick kids, but to try and take care of sick kids while sick, well, that's fun in and of itself. I'm sure you've all been there; heck, I've been there before. But when you're going through it, it's like it's a new thing, and you don't know how you're going to manage or balance or even find the strength to change the sheets or run the laundry.

Luckily, mine only lasted for about 24 hours, where I felt mostly good by Sunday night. Still nauseous here and there, but not bad. And I never did throw up, but just felt like I was going to at any minute.

On top of the sickness, I've come down (up?) with some sort of rash. It started on Friday, with my tummy, then has spread quickly to my back, and now it's going down my legs, my arms, and up my neck. I have no idea what I came in contact with that gave me a rash, and neither did the doctor. Now I have medicine to hopefully clear it up, but it's starting to itch. Fun times at the Nat Pack's house.

Oh, and Pete got sick yesterday, after we went to the Wolverine movie. Good movie, by the way, at least what I heard of it. We took all the kids during Ivy's nap. The poor girl got shots that morning, and against my better judgment we took her to the theatre, where it was a wrestling match the whole time. I'd finally get her to sleep, go to sit down in my squeaky chair, and she'd wake up and start wailing in my ear, until I stood up again with her. At least we only disturbed 5 or 6 other people besides ourselves.

Adding to the sickness, or maybe because of the sickness, I've just felt...inadequate. Or sad. Or tired. I'm not really sure, and right now is probably not the best time to figure it out as I've had little sleep during the night. (Up with Ivy and Pete, and then the medicine kind of makes you stay awake, too. I'm going to be loving this coming week, I can feel it!) It's like, I can't do anything right. Case in point: the kids wanted to swim on Saturday, so I got the pool out, but then started feeling sick and didn't bother to lotion up their little backs. I have three lobster children now. That's bad parenting for you right there. Or I'm getting food for the kids, but I'm not getting it fast enough. The whining and fighting and yelling... I feel like I've been constantly cleaning my kitchen, but it's still a mess. Don't even get me started on laundry; I think Ivy's whole wardrobe is downstairs in the laundry basket. It's seems as if every time I try harder to get on top of my cleaning, or be a loving mom, or be a great wife, the worse it becomes, the more I fail. Like walking uphill in sand.

Well, I need to get going. I have a few bathrooms to clean, and groceries to buy, and clothes to fold. I just wanted/needed to complain for a bit.