Go Hop On Pop

From day 1 Alyssa has been a finger sucker.  I tried every pacifier on the market to try and convince her that sucking her fingers was a bad idea, I finally gave up and embraced my little finger sucker.  She has always been so quiet, and content, and easy, if she got upset she just sucked her fingers.  I admit, I could see a good side to this self soothing thing.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to break her of the habit, and worried about it.  After some research I decided to see if it wouldn’t just solve itself.  When she turned 3 she showed no sign of slowing so I decided to just try one time to see if we could break the habit.  She was excited about it, and wanted to stop and was all game to try.  I painted some of that nasty tasting finger stuff on her fingers and that was the end of the story.  She must of been more than ready to give up the habit because it took only that one day, and she hasn’t gone back. I’ve been waiting to make this post to see if it would last but we are more than a month clean of finger sucking, I’m declaring a victory.

Now one might thing that I would be overjoyed over this, and I am.  But, this great success has come with some odd side effects.  Alyssa, my quiet sweet little princess is not so… hmmm, QUIET any more.  Yack, yack, yack, all the time and opinionated too.  She has also become a hazard to take out.  Before I could barely get her to talk to other people, now she looks for all opportunities to ask strangers questions.  A few weeks ago we were getting the van fixed, and we had to wait for a couple of hours at the dealership.  She had quite the smorgasbord of people to torment.  I purposely sat away from the lady without teeth, then there was the lady with the giant snake tattooed in between her bosom, so we sat next to a grandma.  Then the grandma spoke, and was obviously a smoker.  So Alyssa pipes up, “are you a boy or a girl?”  Oy!  Then she asks her where her daddy is.  The lady goes on to tell her that her Daddy got into a wreck and the car hit him so hard that his head was knocked all the way off his shoulders and onto the floor.  Hmmm, tattoo snake lady is looking like the safer choice.  I offered Alyssa some crayons and paper that the dealership had out.  They had those cheap crayons that don’t work, and Alyssa decided someone in charge needed to know.  She marched right up to the gentleman behind the desk and asked him to make the crayons work, and wanted to know why they had crayons that didn’t work.  He was a good sport about it.  I think they moved my car to the front of the line, because we were out of there in seconds after this.

I’m proud of my big girl, and as awkward as some of her talking has become I’m happy to see my little turtle come out of her shell.  Although I might, maybe miss, just a little bit, the “I’m mad so I’m going to my room to suck my fingers” response to things.  I love this being a mother thing.

I’ve been sewing skirts, just sharing my latest creation.  They are so easy I can whip one out in a couple of hours from start to finish, now if I could just get my sewing machine to give me a nice consistent stitch I’d be happy.  Luckily for me Alyssa demands to wear a skirt daily, so she’s more than happy to have me on a skirt kick.

“Ring, ring, ring, Hullo…”

“Uh Hi, Honey?… How’s work?”

“Good, I’m down 3 men today, the server at … blah, blah, blah and we were able to recover, blah, blah, so cool, blah, blah.  Did you need something, I know you didn’t call to hear my computer garble.”

“I’m so sorry, my back… sob, sob, sob, the baby is crying, sob, sob, sob, I’m so sorry, sob, sob, sob.”

“I can leave at noon, does that work”

I say Yes, in my mind I’m screaming NO.  Danny got home just in time.  Alyssa was sitting on the toilet needing a serious wiping, and the baby was hungry and I was frozen in my spot wondering how I got into this mess.

I’m tough, I go to bed, real tough huh?  Spend the next 3 days there, telling Danny that tomorrow I’ll be better, tomorrow comes, no luck, tomorrow, nope, tomorrow, hmmm.  Now what?

My good friend, convinced me to call a chiropractor, I couldn’t get into her person, so I find another recommendation.  I had no idea what to expect, but was prepared for some sort of chain, and traction type table, along with other torture type instruments, that will surely be covered in metal spikes.

The guy quickly tells me that I have two vertebrae that are locked into an unnatural position.  Hmmm, this is costing me how much?  He has me get into a pretzel like position, and I feel like I’m going to fall off the table, he tells me that he’s only ever dropped 3 people and to relax (ha).  I tell him that I’m almost certain to be his 4th.  He strikes like a cat when I’m nervously chatting, POP, crap, what the heck… He says to roll over and we’ll do it again on the other side.  I do, but this time I’m on to his trick, and my muscles tense up and there is no way he’s going to catch me off guard again.  He says something about knowing my type… (control freak).  He’s says to come back on Wednesday he has some other tricks up his sleeve.  I did feel a lot better.  It’s a miracle, I’m ready to hand over my first born, but he warns me that what he did is going to hurt and that ice will be my friend.  I don’t use it, in my mind all was well.  So on the way home I call the kids, tell them to have shoes on and balls ready we’re going to the park.  We get to the park, and I try to jump out of the car and show these kids how to shoot some hoops, when I realize that I’m in a lot of pain.  I’m walking, but one foot is dragging, Danny teases me a little, and the kids run circles around my pathetic limb dragging person.  Sigh.  I went and sat on a bench until I started shivering and drug my leg to the van.  Danny fixed dinner, we had FHE on my bed.  The kids all stood on my bed while singing Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.  It was cute, but maybe a little bit of a dig since there was no way I could touch my knees or toes.  Funny, aren’t they?

I’m still not sure how I feel about the chiropractor, I’m assuming this is going to take time, and that is one thing I don’t have.

I often refer to the place we live as Brown Town.  Beauty is around us, but is often elusive, and I have to be on the lookout to find it.  When we first moved here, I set a goal to find something beautiful daily, it almost became a game for me.  I find that I still do this at least once a week.  There is always beauty to be found coming down the hill into Dayton especially in the the fall and the spring. The big cottonwoods frame the shore of the river.  Charm can be found hiking around the ruins of the old mill, and in the old buildings in old town Dayton.  We love to walk down to the river from our home and stop at the little pond and try to catch frogs.  Today we took a walk after church down to the river.  It was such a wonderful day that we wandered a little further than normal, and found a waterfall (kind of) and a beach.  I was so pleasantly surprised, after living here for 9 years, we found something new.  I’m looking forward many picnics there this spring.  I love the little surprises life gives.

Waterfall (kind of)

Feeding Daddy a rock sandwich

Daddy and his girls, nice Aubrey! She did something crazy in every picture, little goose.

A decent one of Aubrey

Aubrey collected shells on the beach and came home with dozens of them in her pocket

Hallie loved being outside, I couldn’t resist taking some pictures of her

Cookies are made, and Valentines ready.  I made the easiest Valentines for the kids this year.  I took a picture of the kids holding a fist, added a little wording on the cards, 1 hour print at Costco, insert sucker, and out the door.

Life is good.  There are so many places I have to be, so many things that need to be done… yet things can be changed forever  in seconds.  I have been following this heart breaking story (here) .  A reminder to me how precious life is, how diligent I need to be as a parent, and how important it is to tell the people you love what they mean to you.

This has been a CrAzY week.  Tanner had two basketball games, scouts, there was activity days for Emma and the spelling bee at the end of the week and two piano lessons.  I feel tired and worn out trying to keep up with it all, but at the same time so happy that we have so many fun things to do.

The spelling bee was a nail biter.  Emma did so great, but at the last word CHOKED big time.  Poor kid, I tried to get her to hold it together, I didn’t think she’d want all of the pictures in the paper to be of her with tears in her eyes.  She did shed a few but for the most part held it together.  She took second place, and did so well.  I have no doubts that next year she will take 1st place.  She has this goal to make it to the national spelling bee in Washington D.C. and had she won she would have been one step closer… Oh well, it was, overall a positive experience.

A few pictures from our busy week.

Waiting for the Bee to begin

Emma with the her GT teacher and the two other students sent to the Bee from her school.

Grandma O’Barr sent Alyssa this little dress up skirt that she made with some left over material.  Alyssa, of course, loves it.  She asked me if she could wear it to Disney Land to show Sleeping Beauty.

Hallie is 8 months old today, amazing to me that 8 months has passed.  I had grand plans to take picture of her today, I was going to wait until the lighting was perfect but she woke in such a good mood, , that I decided to just do them this morning.  I didn’t want to ruin her mood by dressing here, so here are a few.  Anyone know of a good online tutorial for photo editing?

Hallie just cut her first tooth, and is FINALLY sleeping through the night.  She’s happy most of the time, but likes to be held all the time.

The kids are busy, Emma is skiing at Tahoe every Friday now, and basketball season has started for Tanner.  Emma won the 6th grade spelling bee and will be heading to the county spelling bee in a few weeks.  We got a visit from Grandma and Grandpa O’Barr.  We’ve set some family goals, and some individual goals, and have been trying to get ourselves into a routine.  I’ve been going to the gym for a couple of weeks now, and I’m feeling great, but disapointed that I can’t seem to drop any pounds, but trying not to  dwell.  Life is crazy.  Today was a typical Sunday, I must admit, I have been wondering why the Sabbath is called the day of rest, when it seems like it is usually such a crazy day and I can’t wait for it to end so that I can get some rest.  We got to church today, and Aubrey couldn’t wait to go and give our tithing to a member of the bishopric.  Aubrey knows the brother really well that she was giving the tithing to, and so she runs up to him, to talk.  I was behind by a few minutes getting the baby out and getting into the chapel.  When I walked in, I took a quick note of where my kids were, and noticed Aubrey up talking to Bro. Clark, and her middle finger is straight up with all of her other little fingers folded down, and she is holding her hand right up in his face.  I just about lost it, when I noticed that she was enthusiastically showing him that she was wearing her CTR ring.  I chuckled to myself, and knew he would know her intent of the action, and I went and sat down.  That child is going to be the death of me, at least I’ll die laughing.

I think anytime I add something to my life something else suffers, and my blog seems to be the victim.  Because I keep it as a family journal it’s important that I keep writing, even if my writing sucks, and no one reads it.

One of my friends is doing a picture a day for 365 days, it sounds like such a fun project, but I keep thinking that because I didn’t start on January 1st I can’t do it, but I guess I set my own rules, so I might try it.

Danny’s birthday is tomorrow.  He’s is now closer to 40 then he is to 30, so to celebrate we had a few friends over tonight for cake and ice cream.  I also made him his favorite meal from his growing up years.  My brain kept screaming that you should never make your husbands favorite childhood meal that his mom used to make, because it will never taste like his Mom makes it.  But I made it anyway, and it turned out pretty good, although to me it looks like a plate of vomit, but it does taste good.  I can’t express what my husband means to me.  He is my everything, he’s so kind and giving of everything.  He’s a fabulous father, and a great husband, and I can’t imagine life without him.  I can tell him anything, talk to him about everything, he sees the darkest places of my mind, and still loves me.  He is my best friend.

Alyssa in one of her famous outfits.  Yes, those are tights over the top of feetie jammies.