Halloween 2015

I was raised on ward trunk-or-treats and my mom was afraid of having her kids wander the ghetto neighborhoods of Las Vegas, so we were never allowed to go trick-or-treating. I never went. After I got married, Josh and I participated in passing out candy for trunk-or-treaters and trick-or-treaters, but of course by then we were too old to beg for candy ourselves. Scarlet has been too young until now to go herself, leading up to the point of this blog: today for the first time, Josh and I were able to go trick-or-treating with our daughter.

My sister and her kids are in town for their annual Halloween visit--Cornbelly's, Boo at the Zoo, Wheeler Farm--and this year the Boo at the Zoo was held the weekend before Halloween so they weren't able to attend. Instead, we decided to go trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. I didn't know how receptive our neighbors would be to trick-or-treaters. In our apartment complex, only one porch light was on (ours) and only one family was prepared with candy to pass out (ours). This year we had no trick-or-treaters but I like to be prepared just in case, so we have a lot of leftover candy. My point about our complex is that I wasn't certain people would be very willing to pass out candy in the houses surrounding our complex. Compounding that issue was the fact that we got a late start on trick-or-treating after dinner. By the time everyone was dressed and ready, it was eight o'clock, which happens to be Scarlet's bedtime. Josh said his parents used to lock up and turn out the lights by eight o'clock on Halloween, and that he used to trick-or-treat at six. That made me really worried that we were too late.

But I had no reason to fear. We only went down a few local neighborhoods and in less than an hour, my nephews and nieces had full buckets of candy, with three full-size candy bars apiece. I was amazed at the generosity of these people and felt a lot of gratitude for them because they made my family so happy on their visit. In Las Vegas, my mom's neighborhood gets a lot of traffic because people drive their kids into the neighborhoods and stay in their cars on the street the entire time, so there's a ridiculous traffic jam along all the streets in the entire block. My mom resents so many people being bussed in from all over the valley because she goes broke trying to get enough candy to last the night, and I completely understand. That seems to take away from the spirit of the holiday when you seek out the best neighborhoods to try to score the most candy. It's also hard in Las Vegas because the city never sleeps, so teenagers will ring doorbells at close to ten at night to fill up their bags one more time. A family friend who lives in the same neighborhood as my mom posted on Facebook tonight that in two and a half hours, she passed out more than five hundred pieces of candy. It's just insanity there.

In my neighborhood here, however, I was only met with gracious and generous people who shared their candy with smiles and compliments on costumes. It was such a wonderfully positive experience that I vowed to also be one of those fun homeowners who shares candy all night long and enjoys every minute of it. I want to pay forward the happiness my family felt tonight.

Scarlet was dressed up as Anna from Frozen and James was Olaf (I had to make his costume because the stores didn't carry his size). We all stopped by a house that puts on a Halloween-themed light show after trick-or-treating, to end our night before walking home. It was a wonderful night of fun and a perfect example of why this is one of my all-time favorite holidays!

Dinner With the Fishes

Josh and I have gotten out of the habit of going on weekly dates. It was so easy when we were first married to consider any activity a "date", that we didn't really go out of our apartment much. And now that we have children we've sort of allowed our own habit of laziness and abhorrence of planning to overwhelm our urge for date night. In other words, we don't go on many dates. Not deliberately, in any case.

This is extra pathetic since my sister is living with us for the rest of the year, and she just happens to have Friday nights off from work so she can absolutely babysit for us. She's even urged us to go on dates and insisted that we let her babysit. We have totally wasted this unique opportunity to date over the summer and I'm just now starting to feel the pings of regret from it.

So, to sate my conscience, I insisted we go to dinner together on Friday. Josh had been wanting to try Red Lobster for several months now (a perfect example of how apathetic we are--Josh cares just enough to want to eat somewhere but not enough to do anything about it for several months. We need help.), so we decided to try it out. I know it's a chain restaurant and there's one every ten feet throughout the southwest, but neither of us had ever tried it before. We ventured to the nearest one and found its substantial parking lot completely crammed with cars. Not a single parking spot in sight, including the side of the road where several cars had parked against the sidewalk outlining the parking lot. I don't know if there was some fancy shindig going down at this particular restaurant or we had chosen the busiest time to eat or if Red Lobster was the greatest dining experience known to man, but we were not willing to wade through the crowd of people standing outside the doors to find out how long our wait time would be. Instead we drove the extra fifteen minutes to the next nearest one.

This one was deceptively larger on the inside than the outside. We walked into a dim gray-colored foyer with a tank of depressed lobsters next to the host desk. The air smelled like high-powered air conditioning with a faint undertone of fish. That felt about right, so we ventured to put our names down and discovered our wait would be about ten minutes. Not too shabby. I went over to the tank and stared at the soulless eyes of the giant ocean bugs before saying quietly, "You're all going to be dead soon." It wasn't a taunt so much as a statement of surprised awareness. There's something kind of chilling about seeing your food alive and (I think) happy(?) before you plan on eating it.

In any case, we were seated quickly and surrounded by a lot of old people. I mean, a LOT of old people. It was still somewhat early for dinner, I guess. We'd left for dinner around 5 or 5:30 and with the extra driving and the waiting, it couldn't have been quite six o'clock yet. Happy hour for the elderly, I guess. It did sort of feel like we had encroached upon their turf and that we should leave the restaurant and let them claim it for their generation. But we stayed and ordered lobster-artichoke dip as an appetizer (I hope the lobster meat came from one of the already-dead specimens in the kitchen and not from the tank in the front). We had a couple of boring side salads and then I ate a parmesan-crusted tilapia and Josh enjoyed a seafood platter with crab legs, lobster tail, and shrimp.

I'm not much of a seafood eater so I played it safe and I'm glad I did. I enjoyed my meal. Josh had a little trouble figuring out how to crack open crab legs (he asked the waitress, who was really helpful) and then he had a whole lot of fun eating all the food. We both agreed the crab meat was the tastiest, although it was a lot of work for a little bit of food. And I had to maintain my distance from all the exoskeleton cracking and avoid touching the creepy pointy claws while Josh yanked and ripped open the body of some poor crab. I normally struggle pulling apart chicken bones so I usually buy boneless meats from the grocery store; seafood "bones" make me even more squeamish because they're even creepier-looking, so I was pretty uncomfortable during the meat-gathering portion of our meal.

As the evening progressed, the restaurant seemed to fill with even more geriatrics. They came out of the woodwork. It was peculiarly unsettling to see so many old people congregate to the same location. I don't have any problem with old people but I'm not used to seeing so many in one place and this was definitely more than a few. It was bizarre.

Our conversation was really fun and we both managed to avoid talking about our kids, which we sometimes struggle to do on dates. We don't date often but when we do, we try to make the conversation about us and our personal interests rather than our little brood, to ensure that we're working on our roles as spouses rather than our roles as parents. It was a delightful evening. I was reminded once again how much I love my husband. He's so easy to talk to and he has wonderfully interesting things to say. As a decided and committed introvert, it's sometimes difficult for me to coax conversation out of him at home. He can happily spend an evening silently engrossed in technology. I have to force more than one-syllable responses from him when he's particular enthralled in his chosen entertainment. But removed from technology and focused solely on decent food in a semi-private environment, Josh is resplendent. We discussed stock options and their effects on companies (Josh had to clarify a few minor points of confusion for me), growing up in the west, Tinder, eastern European culture, cost-of-living raises, the hierarchy of management, and a myriad of other random-but-somehow-fluidly-connected topics. I had so much fun and hated to leave but nursing mothers have an internal ticking clock for separating from their young, so we had to head back home.

Upon arrival, we discovered my poor sister holding a screaming James and standing beside a screaming Scarlet. Scarlet didn't want to get ready for bed so she was vocally protesting, and James did not appreciate having been put in his swing earlier in the evening and was also vocally protesting. Josh and I each chose a child and went right back to our roles as parents. We love our life and we love our children, but it was immeasurably pleasant to spend a couple of hours taking care of our other roles. It made returning to our parental responsibilities even more enjoyable.

Mommy Time For Each Of Them

I've now been a mother of two for two whole weeks now and it's been an amazing transformation. James was born with some unidentified inflammation in his body so to be safe, his pediatrician recommended we keep him at the hospital for a three-day course of baby-appropriate antibiotics. That pushed our release date back from the next morning to five whole days later thanks to some complications. It was a difficult week for me because I wanted to nurse my baby, so I needed to stay in the hospital for that same week as well. Perhaps the biggest thing I regretted, aside from having my family split in half for a week, was not being able to take care of my daughter. Poor Scarlet was exclusively in Daddy's care for the week and it really showed in her daily visits to the hospital.

She was dressed in clothes but not necessarily matching ones, and her hair was always left down and unruly. She chose her own shoes each day, so they never matched her clothes and almost always had red glitter on them. She was also happy and cheerful and well fed. She let me hug and kiss her when she played in the hospital room, but Daddy was her obvious preference. It was hard for me to sit by and watch her develop a stronger relationship with her father at the expense of losing her relationship with her mother. Now maybe I'm being a little bit dramatic about the whole thing and maybe my week away didn't permanently affect anyone except for myself, but I reserve the right to be a bit dramatic because I still have a lot of hormones raging around inside me as I recover from this most recent childbirth.

In any  case, I was determined to spend some one-on-one time with Scarlet once I got home. The thing I didn't consider was my own recovery. I took Scarlet to the library one day, and had to sit the entire time while she raced around and played with toys. It was difficult for me to even sit on those silly wooden chairs thanks to this labor being more difficult than the last one, so I was grateful to be going home after Scarlet had had her fill of the library. A couple of days later I felt stronger, so I took her to the zoo with Josh and James. Turns out I'm not quite recovered enough to go walking around for an hour. It was exhausting agony and I looked for every opportunity to sit down. A few days later I ventured forth again with Scarlet to the park, where I helped her down the slide and played with her on all the jungle gym toys and pushed her on the swing. Enough time had finally passed that I was able to play with her without it being a physical accomplishment by then. Thank goodness.

Josh already spends each morning with her, which used to be my personal Scarlet time before James kept me up all night and I needed the morning to catch a few hours of sleep. So even that time is lost to me. And I nurse James so often that it commonly falls to Josh to feed Scarlet lunch and put her down for her nap and make her brush her teeth before bed. I'm still struggling to get in my one-on-ones with her.

Tonight I gave Scarlet a bath while Josh fed James from a bottle. Scarlet stomped around in the water without ever sitting down, per her usual. I poured water from a cup all over her to get her clean, and she endured the shampoo and rinsing I gave her afterward. Then she played with her bath toys and showed them to me one at a time. I watched her play and I responded to her when she showed things to me, and we generally enjoyed our one-on-one time together. I dried her off and combed her hair, then lotioned up her arms and legs and dressed her in clean pajamas. She smiled and chattered the entire time. She was happy and sweet and wonderful as I prepared her for bed. We said a prayer together, with her folding her arms and I holding her in my arms. Then we sang a silly song and she kissed her dad and her baby brother good night. I gave her her polar bear toy and tucked her in bed and kissed her cheek while she she looked at me with her sparkling eyes. I just love that little girl.

Now maybe there won't be a lot of one-on-one opportunities with Scarlet as James continues to need a lot of my time, but I'm not so concerned as I was a week ago. What time I have, I can share with the two of them. Bath time and bed time aren't as much fun as a trip to the library or a walk around the zoo, but those chores present an opportunity to give my undivided attention to my child and I have learned that by taking advantage of those activities, I have time enough for both my babies.

I finished...(finally)!

I signed up for the instructional design degree this past January and it was amazing. I really enjoyed my classes and loved the challenge of completing them as quickly as possible. I finished all twelve classes by March 17th and then I got scared. The capstone intimidated me. I thought I could complete it fairly quickly if I just got going on it, but I couldn't seem to bring myself to get going. I basically shut down.

March ended, all of April rolled by, and then (shocking even myself) May completely passed. I began to imagine the possibility of not completing the program and just accepting the knowledge I learned from the program and counting it as worth the price. I avoided my school emails because I didn't want to face the concern of my capstone facilitator. I avoided phone calls from my mentor. I kept saying I'd spend the weekend working on my capstone and then I did anything I could to not find the time on the weekends for schoolwork.

Josh used to ask me if I was planning on working on my schoolwork each night. I'd shrug and watch a lot of tv instead. He normally leaves me to my own insane goals, but it really made me feel guilty that he would bring up my school so often. I could tell he was anxious for me to not lose this opportunity. I spent a lot of sleepless nights worrying about not graduating. It would give me the worst insomnia and then I'd be depressed and exhausted all the next day when I'd have to  start over with the denials and the time-wasting. I kept analyzing my chances for graduation as each day slipped by but I could not bring myself to resume work on my capstone. I didn't want to pay for another semester and I didn't want to end the semester without the degree and most importantly I didn't want to finish my capstone to earn the degree during my current semester. So I kept going around and around inside my own head. I lost my motivation to clean or cook or even regularly change out of my pajamas. And since I was pregnant, I grew more and more lethargic with each increasingly hot month. I can barely move now without some sort of discomfort and my stress has gotten so out of hand that I was hospitalized for high blood pressure and chronic headaches. That was ridiculous. Something had to give.

Now, granted, a lot of this crazy thinking is just typical pregnancy brain for me. I struggled with the exact same thing as an MBA student when I was pregnant with Scarlet. (Why do I keep thinking that pregnancy is a smart time to earn a master's degree?) I couldn't motivate myself to complete my classes then either. I had insomnia then too, and all my fears and doubts and concerns would pile themselves on top of me until I couldn't breathe and I certainly couldn't sleep. For me to slowly, grudgingly stir myself from my stupor this time around, I had to have my poor mentor beg me to contact her or she'd be forced to kick me out of the program.

So I emailed my mentor to indicate I'd still like to work on my program requirements even though it was June 4 and I had less than a month to complete my entire capstone and oral defense. But she was forgiving and kind and didn't offer a single word of rebuke, which--as a people pleaser--would have made me shrivel up and want to hide some more. Instead, I was motivated to please my mentor since I felt like I owed her for all those weeks of neglect.

I jumped right into my capstone. I worked on it every night. I worked on it through the three-day weekend. I worked on it in the car on the drive down to Las Vegas and on the drive back to Salt Lake. I worked on it while my youngest sister was in town to visit after returning from her mission. I didn't give myself a night off until I had completed the entire capstone and submitted everything.

Then my facilitator took over and helped me get my tasks approved and even helped me come up with my research questions. She scheduled my oral defense before all of my tasks had been passed because she was so confident that they would pass. That left me having to create my presentation as quickly as possible. I had to discuss my research study for at least 30 minutes and use my created slides to present the information. I practiced my presentation exhaustively in preparation for my oral defense while developing a nice summery cold, and then I presented my defense with a raspy voice and a runny nose. Totally, totally worth it because my facilitator was all praise and admiration for the amount of work I did and the speed with which I completed it. In 21 days I had completed my entire capstone class. My facilitator was so nice that she graded the presentation within the hour so that I'd get to see this little jewel in my student portal before the day was over:

Oh yeah! Finished all my classes with a whopping five days left in the term! So now I am nursing my cold in victory and Josh and I have dinner plans to celebrate tomorrow night (so I can recover a bit from this silly cold) and I'm just so so relieved. My stress headache is already smaller and I can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel. There's just one more pending event in roughly nine days that I need to wait on before I'll be able to take a maternity leave and possibly get a good night's sleep (yeah, yeah, even I don't see it happening but I like to dream). I am so happy to have taken that program, I'm so happy I finished it, and I'm so, so happy I was able to take away a diploma before my first term ended. All of my school goals have now been met and although I may never pursue another degree, if I do I'll reread this post so that I remember how difficult it was...and possibly how worth it that it can be so long as I finish what I started.

Scarlet Takes on the Birds

This past Saturday I had intended to hole up and focus entirely and exclusively on my schoolwork. But it didn't rain as it has the previous three Saturdays and I didn't want to waste this golden opportunity, so Josh and I took Scarlet to the Tracy Aviary instead. I've been meaning to go for a while but since an aviary is like an extremely limited zoo, I just didn't see the point. Holy cow, this aviary is incredible, though! Not only do they have absolutely fascinating birds and beautiful exhibits, but the grounds are fun to play on and there are play places for the children and the foliage and landscaping it beautiful to walk through. They offer a really interesting wetlands tour and you can feed the parrots or the pelicans and the South American exhibit is indoors and really steamy and possibly too hot for overly pregnant women. It's all just a ton of fun and I regretted getting there later than we had planned because we had to rush out of there to put Scarlet down for her nap. Overall it was well worth the trouble and I'm glad schoolwork got postponed until Monday.

The hornbill was almost as big as Scarlet.

The trick is to lob the fish gently into their mouths.

You can see him widening his lower bill to catch the fish.

The pretty parrots all in a row.

Scarlet was justifiably frightened of the peacock after he spread out his tail feathers.

5K 2015

I ran a 5K for the first time in 2012 and it was so liberating and enjoyable that I vowed to run at least one 5K every year for the rest of my life (or until I don't like doing it anymore). This year I actually got to run the same 5K that I ran in 2012. Also, my sister Rebecca signed up for the insane half marathon.

This is her at mile ten, totally crushing it.

 I had a lot of fun because I got to run with my mom and we went at a fairly moderate pace. I've run just before getting pregnant and I've certainly run after being pregnant, but I've never run a 5K during pregnancy.

Finish line!

At 31 weeks, the oddest things happen to your body. Apparently without my knowing it, my center of balance shifted, my hips widened, and I had more trouble running than I should have had. I also, for the first time in my life, had muscle cramps in my thighs. Becca helped show me some leg stretches to do after the run but I couldn't understand why I needed them considering I've never needed to stretch or had muscle cramps after such a short run. Whatever I did while running, I was off from my regular stride because after we all stretched I tried to stand up. And I couldn't move my legs. While the brave Becca wearily rose from her stretching after her daunting and impressive 13 miles, I cried out and slowly rolled onto my hands and knees. I needed Josh's arm to walk to the car, and I have been hobbling and whimpering ever since.

I also got a lot of comments from people passing me at the finish line and at the restaurant we ate at afterwards. People, I got the okay from my obstetrician before doing this. He said it was totally fine for me to run a 5K. He's had pregnant women run marathons. He clearly hates me very much. Also, I clearly hate myself very much because this was way harder than any of the other races I've run. I think I'll wait to give birth before doing another one of these bad boys.

So the moral of the story? If you're going to be a baby about running, don't run the same race with a mighty half marathoner. You're going to come out looking like a huge wuss. :)

Our landlord won't let us get a dog...

...so we put a leash on our two-year-old instead. I was embarrassed to have put a leash on my child like she's some sort of canine, but that went away in the first ten seconds.

The first ten seconds of her trying out the backpack with its "monkey tail"

Scarlet loves the monkey backpack and I love that she doesn't resent being steered away from oncoming traffic and that I don't have to constantly chase after her and pick her up. It has been increasingly more difficult to do that ever since I entered the third trimester.

Whenever Scarlet puts on her backpack, she expects to go somewhere. She insists on wearing it all day long regardless, but she also expects to go places. The backpack has apparently forced us all to be more active. Josh and Becca took her on a hike on Saturday. Then we went on a second hike later in the day that I could join in on. On Sunday we took her for a walk around the neighborhood. Yesterday we went on another hike for FHE. Today I took her for a walk during my lunch break. She has been more active than she's ever been before and it's thanks to that silly leash.

We discovered that using the stroller to get her places isn't very effective anymore because she grows restless and wants to run free. She also has no desire to live, so she doesn't pay any attention to sidewalks, streets, or oncoming traffic. The leash has cured us of all of those concerns. So if you are a parent of a toddler and feel the slight shame of having to kennel your child at night and serve dinner out of feeding bowls without utensils, don't be embarrassed! Go the extra mile and buy a leash for that kid as well. It'll make a world of difference.

Reading is Stressful

I can't read my books right now because they're stressing me out. In Middlemarch, the author worked for more than seven hundred pages to create the most complex entanglement of conflicts. There are exactly 130 pages left and I SERIOUSLY doubt she'll be able to resolve everything in such a short amount of time. In fact, the conflicts are so complex that many of them can't be resolved without affecting the happiness of other characters and their problems. I'm in such an agony over this conundrum and so terrified that the ending won't be as satisfyingly conclusive as I'd like it to be, that I can't seem to bring myself to finish the novel. And this is after six hard months of working through the book.

Then there's Gone With the Wind. My favorite movie ever, my favorite fictional character ever (Katie Scarlett), my favorite everything. I started reading this book and loved it so much that it was easy for me to get through the first four hundred pages and I kept telling Josh how enjoyable it was. Then things got tough for Scarlett and I'm not liking the personality change she's undergoing during this difficult time in her life. I'm worried that her little boy is too neglected and that there's something physically wrong with him as well. I'm scared to death that he's going to die and I can't seem to bring myself to read the next few hundred pages to find out. I'm not even halfway through the novel and I know the story so well that I know of other impending deaths that will make reading the rest of the book already difficult. But Scarlett's son doesn't exist in the movie so I have no idea his plight and I can't stand the thought that he'll die unloved and alone. It's breaking my heart. I had to put the book down and I haven't been able to pick it back up yet.

My third current novel is The Midwife's Tale. I have read the two sequel novels in this series but never the first book, so I was pretty happy to finally find it available at my library. The problem is that I've read the two sequels, so a big portion of this book's plot has already been recapped for me and I do NOT like what happens. Somewhere in the unread portion of the book there is an infant baby that is going to be murdered and the murderer is going to walk away free and that rankles me so deeply that I don't think I can bring myself to read about it at the moment.

So...I'm stuck. My books are too hard for me to emotionally cope with and that leaves me bored because I can't read. I suppose I could pick up a new book but what's the point? In my sensitive state, I'm sure I'll find something miserable about the story to latch on to, which will leave me unable to finish that book as well. In the meantime I've been looking at Netflix a LOT, trying to find *some* show or movie that entices me. Was tv always this stupid? Have I finally become an enlightened person who is too good for television? Ooh, never mind--there's a documentary on honey badgers**. Gotta go.


**Josh loves nature documentaries, so we legitimately watched this on Sunday night. I'm not proud of myself, but I was mildly entertained. Those honey badgers are crazy!

Scarlet Eats Noodles!

So last night Josh was the one with the craving--for Noodle and Co. We almost never go there because it never sounds appealing to me, but I had it at a work conference last week and decided it was pretty darn good, so we chose to splurge and buy dinner last night. We put Scarlet in the stroller and tossed a few library books in the back to return, and then went for a very beautiful spring walk through our neighborhoods. Noodles and Co. is about a twenty-minute walk from our apartment, so we got there fairly quickly, despite Scarlet literally NEEDING to stop and smell the flowers.

Josh was insistent that Scarlet get her own meal, which we almost never do because she just doesn't eat much and it's a waste of money to buy her food she won't eat. I deferred to Josh with a little bit of doubt in my mind, but I figured we could always just take Scarlet's leftovers home. Boy was I surprised when Scarlet downed her ENTIRE PLATE plus a breadstick. I was pretty floored. Scarlet enjoyed her meal so much, she could even be coaxed away from wandering over to other tables and eating on her dad's lap instead.

After dinner, we walked to the library on our way back home. Scarlet loves dancing and playing in the reading circle. We also let her play with the toy cars they have before picking up some books for ourselves and returning some old books. The weather was absolutely gorgeous the entire time we walked, with flower blossoms floating on the wind and brushing past our feet. It was a very relaxing evening.

Scarlet's Birthday Surprise

On Saturday, when we were passing out cupcakes in honor of Scarlet's birthday and she was opening up toys, books, and clothes from her family, we also had a bit of a reveal. We took off her hoodie sweatshirt and let her walk around in this little gem:

I love her unhappy face. She was upset to be taking a picture, but it looks like she's upset to lose her only child status. So funny to me!

After a year of wondering and waiting, we're happy to announce that we're finally having a second child! Baby number two (gender to be determined this Friday) should be here around July fourth, and Josh and I are so thrilled to add more tiny people into our tiny apartment. Life is so good right now!

Scarlet is Two!

Oh my gosh, I still can't even believe it. I've been calling her a two-year-old for months now and claiming that she has been acting like a two-year-old since she was 18 months, but now it's finally true! Scarlet turned two years old yesterday. *Fanfare trumpets*

We had a whole day of activities planned on Saturday, all of which were designed to let Scarlet have fun even though she had no idea why we were doing anything out of the ordinary and she probably didn't care at all. It was so much fun for Josh and me that we went ahead and did it all anyway. We started the morning off with our first ever visit to the aquarium. Scarlet was fascinated with the dull-colored fish at eye-level and less intrigued by the sharks, starfish, anaconda, penguins, and virtually any other, cooler creatures there. We caught one of those 3-D movies up on the second floor, not really paying attention to which movie was available, only that we were five minutes early for it, so we got in line. All of the pictures of the movies that I could see were computer-animated cartoons, so I knew it'd be kid-friendly.

It was not.

Apparently we caught a terrifying 20-minute film called Sea Monsters and it was horrifying. Scarlet insisted on being held by her dad after the first monster rose from the depths to reach out at those of us wearing our 3-D glasses. Random sprays of water or air burst out of the seats and the sides of the theater, terrifying me at random, unexpected moments and causing Josh to laugh at my growing irritation. Finally, after the little extinct sea creature's mother had been murdered and her older brother had also been murdered, we got to watch her sink slowly to the ocean floor as she died of old age. And then the film ended.

The three of us got up uncertainly after that shocking, sad, kid-unfriendly film and went to look at more fish, but the experience was sort of ruined after that, so we ended up leaving soon after. It was lucky we did, too, because the parking lot was jam-packed when we left and we had been lucky enough to get there close to opening so it wasn't very busy for most of our visit, but the crowds were pouring in as we left.

Scarlet fell asleep on the drive back home, so we put her down for her nap and I ran out to the bakery to get cupcakes for her non-party. When she woke up we had pizza for lunch and then took her to the dollar store so she could pick out a few cheap gifts for herself. We let her wander the toy aisle and she ended up only being interested in the empty gumball machines because they were very colorful even though she had no idea what they were. So I picked up a Magnadoodle knock-off, a doctor play kit, and a picture book for her myself. Back at home we wrapped them all up in the same birthday wrapping paper and then took Scarlet to her grandmother's house for dinner and cupcakes.

We had a meal of pasta and salad (Scarlet only ate the bread, which surprised no one) and then we sang to her and she got to blow out her candle (after virtually weeks of candle-blowing practice) and open up a couple of presents. It was a great birthday. I think my favorite part was how she seemed to sense that Josh and I were paying her particular attention (even more so than every other day) so she turned on the charm and just glowed under all the attention. She was so pleasant and wonderful all the time that I just loved spending the whole weekend devoting myself to whatever she wanted. Today she has her two-year checkup and we'll just have to see what her doctor has to say about her growth and progress.

Catch Up

Oh my gosh, so much has happened since I last blogged. Lots to gloss over since no one cares about long posts. Let's get going...

These past six weeks I have been inundated with school assignments and I've been loving every minute. I NEVER expected to enjoy this program, but I'm having a lot of fun with it. It's so intrinsic in my assessment work currently that I don't even have to study as hard or as long as maybe others might to get through a class. I'm steadily working my way through the course of study and enjoying the things I learn in a way I never expected. The MBA was SO BORING to me that I figured I wouldn't like this program either, but I got really lucky. Apparently I love instructional design! I think I love the layout and organization of the WGU course of study too, which really helps. It's just been a lot of fun and I'm really pleased that I am in this program.

Scarlet has been pushing our buttons for the past six months or so. She keeps pushing boundaries and pretending that all attempts to discipline her are just a hilarious joke. I recently took a personality quiz that said I'd struggle to discipline my children and I had to laugh. No kidding. I see the value in discipline but I have a hard time doing it myself. It just makes my heart hurt. I seriously never thought I'd be a softie but poor Josh has had to pick up my slack for months now. (Incidentally I just paused to put Scarlet in time out for yanking out my laptop cord when I warned her not to. See, I'm not a total slacker!) She is practicing sounding out the words we speak to her and she can go for weeks not saying a certain word we've been working on and then just out of the blue say it. The other day she just blurted out "Purple" for no particular reason. She was immediately showered with such praise, love, and affection that she felt no obligation to speak any new words for a few days. We're working on numbers, colors, and random simple nouns. She occasionally will make animal sounds (lions, cats, and dogs) and can now identify her nose, ears, and belly button. She may be quite a bit behind other almost-two-year-olds in speech development, but she is making wonderful progress in our eyes and we are thrilled with her.

Scarlet and I spent three weeks visiting my sister in Pittsburgh and we've been back home for just over a week now. It was a surreal experience. I loved being with my sister. I loved talking with her and watching Scarlet develop and progress so much faster with her four-year-old cousin around her, and I loved being able to provide tiny acts of service for my sister like babysitting on Friday nights so she and my brother-in-law could go on dates, and cleaning the kitchen. I didn't love working remotely (I just wanted to play with my sister and my niece!), and I HATED being a single mom (Scarlet often had hard nights so I got very little sleep), and of course I missed my husband fiercely. Josh passed the time by working 12- to 14-hour days and collapsing into bed afterward. He worked himself silly to avoid the empty apartment, but on some days he made the time to hang out with some work friends after hours since there was no one to come home to. Josh NEVER goes to movies or bowling or whatever--least of all with people who are not me and Scarlet--but he saw three movies in our absence and went bowling with his work friends. I was relieved that he wasn't spending all his time working or sleeping, but it was still hard to be without him for so long.

My sister and I took turns working on our schoolwork and babysitting the kids while I was in Pittsburgh, so the days were really busy after work. I remember feeling tired just all the time, but overall it was a wonderful trip. I'm attending an editor conference for work in March and it takes place in Pittsburgh (the coincidence made me laugh) so I'll get to see my sister again for a few quick hours next month. After that, I can't even fathom when I'll next see her. It is so hard for her to live so far removed from everyone else.

When we flew home and Josh picked up Scarlet for the first time, that little stinker wouldn't look at her father for a couple of hours. She allowed him to hold her, but she turned her head to avoid his gaze and when he caught her gaze, she closed her eyes to avoid him. It was a little sad, I guess, but it made me laugh so hard because it was just so funny to me. Scarlet did the same thing to me and Josh after we returned from Wales last summer, and just like that last trip, she got over it in a couple of hours and loved playing with her daddy.

Scarlet's birthday is on Sunday so we're taking her to the aquarium on Saturday to celebrate. We'll bring cupcakes up to her grandparents' house and sing happy birthday to her that night as well, so she'll know she's loved. I can't believe I'll have a two-year-old. This year has really just started off with a bang and I'm excited to see what the next six weeks bring.

Also, please enjoy this brief video depicting one of the many things Scarlet learned from her twice-as-old cousin:

2014 in Review

I've been so busy, I never got around to posting our year in review! Better eleven days into the new year than never, so here goes. *Scrounges around for pictures to upload* Okay, ready.

January was very calm. I have no pictures of January. I do have a list of resolutions I made in January that I did not complete this past year, but I made significant headway on a lot of goals, so that was nice.

February, my sister Emily left to serve her mission in California. She went to the MTC a couple of days after Scarlet's birthday, so she was here in time to celebrate, which was kind of nice. I got to take the day off to see her go into the MTC and it was just as fun/hard as it had been for the two other sisters I saw leave to serve missions the year before.

Scarlet's birthday fell on a Saturday this year, so we took her to the zoo, though it was clear that she was too cold and little to appreciate the animals. It was fun for us, anyway.

In March I think Josh and I had decided we were going to spend our July in Wales on a three-week tour with my old Welsh history professor (Tom) from college. We were so excited to go but it meant leaving Scarlet behind, which was a lot easier to deal with than the guilt and dread I struggled with all those months leading up to our trip. We started planning and saving for it as soon as we committed to it, and visited Tom in Provo with Scarlet to get as much information as we could about it.

Also in March, I got to visit my sister Heather and Allyse in Colorado. We had a marvelous time together even though I was working remotely. All of our children played together and we went to the zoo and we had more fun than I think I remember having in a long time. Heather has since moved from Colorado, so it'll be a long time before I next see her, but I have the best memories of this past visit.

In April, Rachel and I went down to Provo for a Wales reunion with the 2009 Wales gang (despite it having been five years since we had all gone to Wales together). It was a lot of fun to see everyone but now that so many people have moved away, I believe that may have been our last reunion ever. Well it was a good one.

In May, MEREDITH GOT MARRIED! Do you guys remember that? There was an awesome wedding shower where Margaret won the love and adoration of baby Jack. He is so fun to play with because he smiles so readily.

On Memorial Day weekend, Josh and I took Scarlet up to Wyoming to spend the weekend at a huge Wilson family reunion (my mother-in-law's family). The weather was beautiful and Scarlet was good-natured throughout it all, and we had so much fun with the family.

In June, my niece Brianna came to stay for two weeks, which meant she was just in time for the color run we did in downtown SLC! She ran too fast for me at first, but she got tired a whole lot sooner, so we ended up walking a lot during the last stretch. Doesn't matter--we were still total winners.

I also had Allyse and Heather come visit for a quick weekend in June. We all went to Wheeler Farm because there's nothing more fun than a really cheap wagon ride and an up-close view of farm animals. The kids were ecstatic.

And then our much-anticipated Wales trip was upon us. I packed everything I could possibly think of for Scarlet, and left copious notes for her grandparents who would be tending her in our absence. I missed her terribly during the flights that took us farther and farther from her, but after we settled in and got busy touring and taking photos, it grew easier to be apart from her. We got to skype with her almost every night (for her, it was mid-afternoon), and I did spend an excessive amount of time talking about her with my traveling companions and sharing photos of her, but I wasn't the nervous wreck I thought I'd be. We truly enjoyed our time there.

Because we weren't driving, I spent TONS of time reading. I think I read four books for each week I was there. It was insane. And I ate a lot of ice cream and got to see some truly enchanting sites. I don't know why Wales and England hold such a special place in my heart, but even just looking at these photos I feel peace and happiness. It was the best trip I've ever had in my entire life.

This is us riding in the van. We both read a TON while we traveled.

Raglan Castle. Tom took that photo from across the impressive moat. It's the castliest castle you'll ever see.

The Bridge of Sighs in Oxford

Stonehenge at sunset. We got to go right up to the stones and feel their enormity. As a bonus, a trio of new-age Wiccans gathered in the center of the stones and sang a song of rebirth or something. Talking to them afterward, we found them all to be utterly delightful people.

And my personal favorite place in all of the UK: Tintagel Castle. Supposedly (incorrectly) the birthplace of King Arthur. Mostly just a stunning ruins of a seaside castle with the bluest ocean and the greenest foliage. I feel like the whole place is enchanted with a blanket of ancient magic that keeps that place from ever being touched by modernity. It feels almost sacred there and I hope I return to it one day.

At the beginning of August, Scarlet was fast outgrowing her pack-n-play, so we bit the bullet and bought her a twin-size bed. The first two nights she fell out of it and woke up startled but not screaming. After that, she quit moving around so much and hasn't fallen out of it since.

Although sometimes she still chooses to sleep on the floor.

She still seems impossibly little to have a bed of her own.

In the middle of August, Heather came to visit again! I can't believe how many times I've seen this sister of mine, but I'll never get tired of it. She lives so far away and it's such a treat when she comes to stay. Here she is, helping Scarlet stay on the spinny thing at the park. What a nice aunt!

At the end of August, Rachel and Jonathan had their long-awaited baby Hazel. She was absolutely beautiful when she was born, but a few months later, during conference weekend, she was even cuter. 

Scarlet mostly ignores Hazel but she seemed not to mind holding her just this once.

Then September arrived. That month is extra special for me because it holds my birthday, my work anniversary (okay that one's not so significant to me), and my wedding anniversary. Josh and I went to our favorite restaurant, Cucina Tuscana, for dinner for our anniversary. During the middle of the month, my sister Rebecca came home from her mission, so Scarlet and I flew down to visit the family for a week. Scarlet got to meet the captain on one of the plane rides and seemed to think it wasn't much of a big deal.

I also got the idea of making Scarlet's costume, so this is her trying it on for the first time. She was obsessed with the little pumpkin at her waist and wouldn't let go of it.

This is relevant to nobody, but I was driving on the freeway and saw Swoop, the U of U hawk, driving all bad-A-style on his motorcycle going 80 mph. It was the oddest site, so I took a dangerous photo to prove to Josh it had actually happened.

Then in October, so so many things happened. Stephen and O'Malley got married, and I sneaked a photo of Bobby dancing with Scarlet at the reception. That whole weekend just felt really busy and overwhelming because all of us were there to set up and decorate and do a million things for the reception. By the time I flew back home, I was ready for a break. Josh didn't come down with us, though, because he was taking AND PASSING his second actuarial exam. Woo-hoo! Two down and a million thousand twenty more to go.

Then three different sisters and their families came to visit. Bob and Bobby came up for a quick visit, then Allyse and Richard, and then Nicole. All of them brought their children and all of them stayed with us, and all of them went to Cornbelly's. I'm so glad I bought the season pass this year. It was well used.

Richard and Karter

Nicole's kids and Scarlet on the way to Cornbelly's.

Nicole's kids and Scarlet on the way back from Cornbelly's.

Bob's kids crashing for the night on my living room floor.

In November, I sort of took a break. I wasn't prepared for Nanowrimo so I didn't really do it this year. I slowed down on my reading and I just sort of enjoyed each day as it came. We spent Thanksgiving in Salt Lake City with Josh's family, which was nice and relaxing, and we bought a new washer and dryer on black Friday, because after four years, you really should own one of those things.

In December, I was still going through this weird "recovery" of the year, where I didn't feel compelled to do anything really motivating, like read a thousand books, or write a thousand stories. Instead, I took a very zen attitude about the whole season. I didn't end up buying a tree because Josh and I were going to be spending the Christmas holiday in Vegas. Scarlet and I left even sooner than we planned because we found a great price on a flight, so we went down the weekend before and enjoyed a full week of festivities and family and family photos (none of which I have at the moment) and the permeating spirit of Christ. It was a truly spectacular holiday. Josh and I even spent a couple of nights in a hotel so we could have a private Christmas with just our family in the midst of visiting all the family that was in town for the holiday. It's always been a dream of mine to spend Christmas in a hotel, and it really fulfilled the fantasy to wake up Christmas morning, pull Scarlet into our bed, and help her open up new toys from Santa. It felt very intimate and private and really special. I think I'd like to do it again one year, but Josh had a hard time spending time away from family, so I'll indulge his Christmas wishes for a few years before pressing mine again.

When we got back home, Josh and Scarlet finally succumbed to the illness that had been spreading from person to person in Vegas. It didn't taint the holiday exactly, but it's never any fun knowing someone's child is sick or so-and-so missed dinner because they're resting. I never got sick, but Scarlet took the rest of the year (a full seven days) to recover and was such a fussy baby that I'm still amazed when I see her so happy and pleasant now because I'd forgotten what a sweet person she had been before she got really sick.

The new year has already started off with a bang. I'm a week into my school and one class is already behind me. I'm motivated and excited to get as much school done as quickly as possible just to see how fast I can push myself. Scarlet is practicing her sounds nearly every waking moment (she only has a few words so far), and Josh and I are enjoying our time together in between work and family responsibilities. I have a feeling 2015 is going to be even more eventful than the last year. Happy new year to everyone and I hope you've all had a truly spectacular year!