You know what I can't wait for?

Carly to get older. 
But only for one reason- Girl Scout Cookies.

 

I live in the land of large families; in a state with, most likely, the MOST 8-year-old girls per capita.  But somehow I don't know a single Girl Scout. 

How can this be?!
I don't know. 

And usually I don't think about or care that I don't have any 8-year-old girls in my social circle.  Except for today.  When I've got a terrible craving for Girl Scout Cookies, and I realize that cookie season has come and gone, and no one showed up at my door soliciting.  And then I nearly tear up, because how could I have missed yet another cookie season?  How did I not work harder to make 8-year-old friends this last year?  I had these same feelings of regret last March!

And, I mean, it's not just my loss.  It's really a loss for the Girl Scouts of America too.  Did any of you sell cookies?  Do you remember those color coded order forms?

If a Girl Scout were to come to my door, I would make hers look like this. No joke.

How can that not be win-win?

 So now, I wait.  For Carly to hurry up and get old enough to sell cookies.  I still remember when I sold cookies, and my mom was the cookie coordinator (is that a real title?) and our living room was 3 feet buried under cases and cases of cookies. 

Like Christmas. 

Someday, I'll be that cookie coordinator mom.  I can't wait.

You know those terribly behaved kids you see out in public?

I've decided that they probably aren't normally like that. And just maybe those instances aren't a product of crappy or permissive parenting. In fact, they are probably normally very well-behaved children having an out of character episode.

Yes, must be.

Carly is a bright, articulate, quick little girl. She is normally pretty reasonable, and will comply to a request if you explain calmly why we need to do something. She normally has a desire to please adults and help out.

I can usually walk through stores proudly, while she walks calmly next to the cart holding on to the side. I see the other parents of those terrible children throwing fits and think "see, I'm doing something right!"

Until today.

Yes, today Carly was the WORST child ANYONE has EVER seen in a store. Today it was like a demon possession in the middle of a busy department store.

It started when we first got there. Shopping at 1:30pm without having fed lunch yet = a very bad idea. I was just trying to push through our list and get home, and this was the last stop. And we were just running in to buy one thing! Carly wanted to ride in the cart. But she's way too big, and Wes was in the child seat. So I'm nudging her up the aisles while she mildly whines about what she wants and doesn't want. I'm hissing "come on; we're almost done; we just have to get one thing; I'm sorry there aren't 2 seats; let's go!"

We were buying a spare car seat to leave at the sitter's house, and the box was huge. It teetered on top of the cart and obscured most of my vision. I'm trying to walk down the narrow aisles and not hit anyone while peering around the huge box, and dragging a whiny Carly. I really needed 3 hands- one for Carly, one for the cart, and one to keep the box from falling off.

At this point Carly decides she wants to push the cart. Ugh. Fine. I move up the front and pull/guide from the front so that she doesn't hit anyone.

This really set Carly off. "I want to push it!   You don't touch the cart!   I want to do it ALL BY MYSELF."

I stop, get down on her level, and explain that she can't see and that I need to steer so she can push. We start out again, and once again I hear shrieking "Mommy!  Don't touch the cart!  I do it myself!" I back off a little, and she promptly hit a rack of clothes, over corrects and hits an old lady in a wheelchair. I grab the front and straighten us out and hear "MOMMY!   NO!   I DO IT!"

My urge to kill was rising. It was 2pm, Wes is trying pathetically to fall asleep in the cart, and I can see hunger all over Carly's face. And were still sooo very far from the front of the store. Why in the world is the baby section always in the very back of the store?? Has any mom of young children ever thought, "I'm sure glad I get to haul my kids through the entire store just to buy a box of wipes!" I grab the handle of the cart, tell Carly she can push with me, and try to set a quicker pace.

That's when my kid became possessed. Like the kind of shrieking you'd hope your kid does if he's ever being abducted. Loud enough to easily hear throughout the entire store. Kicking. Yelling "NO!  NO!  NO!" And "MINE!  LET GO!  MINE!" I stop, get down on her level, and remain amazingly calm. I tell her that no one likes to listen to her, and that she has lost the privilege of pushing the cart because she's acting like a psycho behaving poorly.

It doesn't help. Reasoning won't work. There is snot and angry spittle everywhere.


New plan: get out of the store as soon as humanly possible.


I half jog to the registers, dragging a feral, rabid dog behind me. All efforts of maintaining the image of a mother-in-control are gone. We reach the registers, and start waiting in line. Why isn't there an emergency check out line?  Like for when no one else wants you in the store either? You know, screaming child, if you're about to puke, or your water just broke.  Those kinds of things.  Then Carly starts throwing herself bodily against the cart. Man, she's strong when she's mad! I'm doing all I can to brace the cart so it doesn't shoot into the person in front of us.

I grab Carly, plop her down against the magazine rack, and tell her its time for a time out. Remember, still screaming this whole time. In non-English. She spreads out, laying on the ground, and winds her arms around the cart's wheels, still screaming "No!  MINE!" It's been like 10 minutes of screaming, most of it unintelligible. I'm just surprised at this point that it's still about the cart. That's some focus!

And I'm noticing the looks. The ones I would normally give. The ones that say "Whew, glad that's not my kid. My kid would NEVER do that! I must be doing something right." And I want to say "Oh! I know! Where is this kid's parents?" But instead I ask the checker if she wants to keep my child, pay quickly, and grab Carly out of that store.

The screaming continues. Voice hoarse at this point, face red and shining with tears and mucous.

Must
get
to
the
car!

We get to the car, and I release my death grip on Carly's arm. She immediately sinks to the asphalt and begins the thrashing in the parking lot. Great. I lift her up into her seat. She's kicking and hitting...and of course still screaming. I nearly break her arms getting her buckled into her seat, shut the slider, and

 :::sigh::: take a deep breath and enjoy silence for the first time in 25 minutes.

I stood in the parking lot at my cart for a few minutes gathering myself before opening the doors again to get a sleeping Wes into his seat, and wrestling that box into the back. Then I climb in myself and surround myself once more with the horrible noise that is my possessed child.

A quick trip through the drive through feeds the demon and silences her for the first time. As we pull out of the parking lot, I see a police car slowly driving up and down the rows of cars, no doubt looking for the reported child abuse. Then I look in my mirror aimed at the back seat, and see Carly's mottled face, tears still wet on her cheeks, and realize that my perspective has been permanently changed.

Never again will I judge the mother of a screaming child in a store. Never.

Picture of a Tuesday morning

1. It's 11, and we're still in pajamas. I'm obviously not in the office today. Oh, and Carly sans pants? The norm. If I've managed to force her into pants, it's because we are leaving soon to go somewhere.

2. These two are inseparable. Carly wants to dress up in Daddy's shoes? Of course Wes has to then!

3. They just can't leave that shoe basket alone. Or anything else for that matter. Yesterday I spent the day scouring the house. I wonder how long it will take them to destroy it once more.

A closer look

4. We've all been sick around here, and one major symptom has been goopy eyes. All that eye rubbing has led to Wes having infections in his eye lids. Don't worry- he's on antibiotics. But doesn't he look pathetic, like he lost a fight?

5. Carly decided Wes would make a good canvas last night. This is what he looks like after his bath. He was (and still is) head to toe marker.

6. We were lucky enough to have my sister-in-law and niece stay with us for 10 days, and they just left on Sunday. We have been trying to get rid of Wes' binky, but Kalen still has hers, and also he was sick so we give in out of pity. By the time Kiernan and Kalen left, they couldn't find any of their binkies. I guess Wes was stashing them away, because he keeps sporting pretty pink bling now that we're working on taking away his binkies again.

A picture is worth a thousand words, and can sure sum up my morning.

Frozen adventure

On President's day, we took the family on a trip up the Canyon to Midway, Utah to see the ice castles. Marsh's family is visiting, so we had a big group.


The ice castles were beautiful, and the kids had fun walking through the icy tunnels.


On the way back we stopped at the lake, which is frozen over.


All across the lake there were ice fishers set up in their tents. We thought it'd be fun to walk out on the frozen lake and get some pictures.


Carly had fun making snow angels, and I think it'll be fun to take her back to the lake in the summer and try to convince her that she had walked all the way out to the middle.


It was a fun frozen adventure, and it was nice to defrost with big mugs of hot chocolate once we got home.

Car update

After our wreck at Christmas, we got a rental and left our car in Nevada so the insurance adjuster could take a look and make a decision. Wouldn't you know, they decided it was a total loss. Apparently hammering out dents can get pretty expensive.

We negotiated back and forth on a fair price. The adjuster that went out apparently has no idea what he's doing, and we had a few conversations like this with our agent:

Us: "Umm, the car had leather seats."
Bear River Guy: "Oh, really? The adjuster wrote down cloth."
Us: "Yeah, and a towing hitch."
BRG: "Oh, he missed that too."
Us: "And a CD player, and power seats and windows, and power sliding doors, and seat warmers."
BRG: "....oops..."

Ultimately we got what we felt was a fair price.

While the car was in Nevada, we had a local mechanic look at it, and he said that the car looked great! All the fluids came out when it was on it's side, so he filled it back up, put it on a lift, and even drove it around a little. There was nothing mechanically wrong. So we offered to take the insurance company's money, and then offer to buy the car back. They sold it back to us for $600 dollars, the value of the scrap metal.

We drove back out to Nevada and picked up the car. One tire wasn't holding air very well. The front passenger door wouldn't open because the fender was dented. And the passenger mirror fell off. Other than that, all the damage was completely cosmetic.

Once back in town, I took the car to Cascade Collision Repair, where the fender was hammered out and a new mirror was put on for $118 dollars total. I took it to Big O Tires, and they determined that there was dirt in the tire beading, and they cleaned it out and called the tire good as new. For free!

Side note: This is the 3rd time in a row that I have taken a leaky tire to Big O in Springville, and they have repaired it for free. I've never given them a dime, even when I've tried. They've patched twice and rebeaded once... and won't take my money! So anyone in Utah county, take your tire business to Big O Tires in Springville. Seriously great guys!

So here's our car now.


Not incredibly pretty, but I'd say it's great for having gone on to its side. The only damage is cosmetic, and we didn't do any body work other than prying out the fender. The power doors all work- even the slider on the passenger side.

And we were able to take the money insurance gave us and pay off our other car and some other debts. Best crash ever! In all seriousness though, we have just been so fortunate throughout this whole experience.

That's my wuv

A couple weeks ago, I was driving the kids in the car. From the back seat I hear, "Mommy, my wuv is kisses; that's my wuv."

Oh, really?" I ask. "You're love is kisses?"

"Yep, I give kisses to show my wuv."

"Well then, what's Wes' love?" I ask her.

"Umm, Wessy's wuv is growling."

"So then what's my love?"

"Mommy, your wuv is hugs and saying 'I wuv you.'"

"Then what's Daddy's love?"


.....long pause.....


"Daddy's wuv is farting!"

"What?!"

"Yeah, he farts on Wessy's head because he wuvs him. Daddy gives us wuv farts."

Nuga

Last summer, Carly got her first real imaginary friend. She had previously had imaginary playmates, but none that stuck around for more than a few days. And none that had a name. She went to play at a friend's house for the afternoon, and when I picked her up, told me all about the adventures of her "new friend, Nuga!" ('new-gah')

Nuga?
Where did she get that?

I called my friend, sure that 'Nuga' was a derivative of the name of one of her child's toys, or a character in a book, or TV show at their house. But no, she had never heard of Nuga, or an imaginary horse (did I mention that Nuga is a horse?)

Imaginary horses weren't that far out of the norm for our girl. We have had imaginary ghosts, dinosaurs, and bunnies roaming our halls (Okay hall. Singular. Our apartment was very small.) But they never stayed long, and certainly never had a name. Our girl doesn't name things. Her adored stuffed animals are "my doggy," "my baby," and "my bear." When asked what any of their names are, she smiles and says "I don't know; you tell me." And the names we make up for them never stick long. She just has no interest in naming things. So "Nuga" having a name was very unusual.

And Nuga has stuck around. Carly has a close relationship with her horsey friend. Nuga is insistently included in many bedtime stories, and is usually close by when Carly can be found playing pretend.

For Christmas I wanted to bring Nuga to life.

I had seen some hobby horses at local boutiques, and thought that would be a great, age appropriate toy to aid in Carly's imaginary play. So I set out to get more specifics about Carly's best friend (next to daddy). I found that Nuga was pink, with pink hair. Hmmm, hadn't seen any hobby horses that were solid pink.

I got onto etsy, my trusty source for all things unique. I found many adorable hobby horse shops. One in particular was reasonably priced, and I liked the pattern that the designer used. But again, no solid pink.

According to Carly, Nuga wasn't blue with pink flowers
She wasn't pink with small pink flowers.
She wasn't cream with pink paisley.
She certainly wasn't purple.
She was pink. Just pink. And none of that wussy pale pink. Nuga is bright pink. I contacted the designer, and luckily she was able to make a custom pink horse for me.

Christmas came, and Nuga was wrapped like a present on a stick. Carly unwrapped the box, and opened it to see the pink horse head. She pulled it out, and I held my breath wondering if I'd have to give guided prompts to let her know this was supposed to be Nuga.


But without pausing even a second, she exclaimed "Oh! It's my friend NUGA!" And they rode off into the sunset, happily ever after. Or something like that.

Getting unpacked

Marshall got into the UVU paramedic program, so we moved back down to Provo. He starts in January, but I really didn't want to move in snow, so I begged to move asap. We're renting- who knows how long we'll actually be in Provo, but most likely just a year.

I've had some requests of pics of the new place. So as I get rooms unpacked and clean, I may post some pics on here. We moved 2 weeks ago today, and these pictures were taken on Wednesday. That's some speedy unpacking!

Main floor:

View from the stairway

Looking past the couch into the dining area

Carly trying to be in every picture

Standing by the table looking back at the living room

Vogue

The kitchen (love the pantry!)

Upstairs bathroom:


Downstairs there is a playroom, a guest bedroom, and another bathroom, and our 2 bedrooms are upstairs. So more pictures to come!

First things first

We got the keys to our new place on the 18th, and moved in on the 20th. Those first 2 days were spent prepping the house for our arrival.

What could be so important it would take 2 days of work?

The yard.

We only wanted to rent a place with a yard. It was super important. This place was great- the yard was smallish and manageable, and completely fenced. But the yard itself was an overgrown garden. Peppers, strawberries, pumpkins. And lots and lots of weeds.

I wanted a lawn.

Luckily, the yard is smallish (meaning tiny), so landscaping was reasonable.

We spent the first day (and by we I clearly mean Marshall) ripping out all the old foilage. And raking the 2 inch layer of dead leaves. Then we rented a landscaping rake and put down a bunch of topsoil and fertilizer.


The next day we drove to the sod place. I called a bunch of sod farmers and found that the general consensus is that fall is a great time to lay sod. Even in Utah. So we bought our 200 square feet of sod, and loaded it into the back of the minivan. Yeah, we're cheap like that. We at least put down a tarp first.

The van was sooo low. Like trailer hitch 3 inches off the ground low. We took the drive from Orem to south Provo at like 20 miles an hour with the hazards on. All the other drivers on State Street loved that.

When we got home, Marshall did a great job laying all the sod. Russ stopped by to lend a hand. What a great team!


And in the end, wah lah! A green, grassy yard. And it was amazingly cheap, too. The sod was only 40 bucks.


2 weeks later, we had our first good snow, and this is what Marsh and Carly managed on Sunday after church. The face is m&m's, hence the weird bleeding appearance.


Yay for a yard!!

Birth Control

You thought you wanted (more) kids? Take a while to really make sure. Babies are cute and all, but at some point they reach the age where they can be willfully bad.

And by bad, I mean evil.
And by evil I mean horribly destructive.

Proof:


Yes, yes, this is the work of my 3.5 year old. The 3.5 year old who knows better. Who REALLY knows better. This wasn't just innocent examination. Not just curiosity.

No, no. This is willful destruction.

QUICK willful destruction. I was only out of the room a couple minutes. And I came back to a near empty keyboard and a pile of keys. As I rounded the corner, she was frantic to claw off as many as she could before I came down on her in my wrath.

I considered for a minute just scrapping the computer entirely. I mean, HOW do you come back from something like that??!! I have put a key or two back before. But 37?? I figured the computer had been rendered useless, and was really really sad I had decided last week that we could last until next black Friday before needing another laptop.

The best part (and strongest proof she's willfully bad), is that when I asked her why she did it her response was "I didn't! Wesley did!" Umm, no he didn't. He was locked in his high chair.

A half hour later, and after some yelling and kid-thrown-in-rooming (hey, I'm not perfect), I was feeling much better.

I did have to sacrifice two keys for the cause though. Which two would you have chosen? I choose the [ and ] keys. I mean, really, how often do you use those? It's not like I sit here doing algebra on my laptop. My emoticon options got a bit slimmer, but at least I can type sentences.

Welcome back, computer! Goodbye desire to ever reproduce ever again!

Repeat offenders

Once again my wallet started getting a little thin. I had no idea that the hallway vent was going to be a daily problem.


This time it was 100% Wes. I caught him in the act, and chased him down the hall. He dove for the vent, card in hand, as I chased. He was sooo sad when I tackled him and took the goods away. When I got the vent open, I have to say I was impressed. He is getting quicker and sneakier!

And Carly's artistic abilities are really blossoming lately. She loves drawing people, and sometimes monsters. Mostly her drawings have been limited to paper, but the other day she surprised me when I visited the bathroom.


She came in and proudly explained to me that it was a giant, holding a flower, standing on grass next to a tree. And there is a sun and some clouds in the sky. She used 3 colors, and even 'framed' it herself! We left it up this last week to enjoy because we have to scour the walls next week before moving anyway. I can't wait to see what the next draw will be in our new home.