This Post is Titled: Exhausting, but Fun

 

Here’s some big events that we must discuss, from July:

Our City’s Fun Run:

Our kids are good runners.  Gabe, especially, has taken to the sport and feels good about his endurance and ability.  Last year, when I signed my kids up for the children’s race, Gabe was mad that I didn’t sign him up for the adult loop, which is 4 hilly miles.  I told him that if he wanted to do it, he’d really have to train. He wanted to do it.

Starting in May, Gabe and I ran the course every Monday morning.  It was great bonding time, especially with a less than loquacious 9 year old.  He ran the loop in usually 40-44 minutes (which I thought was fabulous time, considering 1.5 miles of it is a steep uphill.)  He felt ready for the race.  On race day, he and I got started at a fast pace.  He kept a slightly sub-9 minute mile pace for most of the race.  At the end of the course, I talked to him a little about a “kick” and his uncle Matt, who was known for his powerful surges at the end of his cross country races.  Gabe decided to try to “kick” at the end.  With 1/10th of a mile left, he took off.  I decided to try to catch him.  It was a fun moment, as spectators cheered at him to “Beat your mom!” 

He finished that course in 35:01!!

He got second place in the under 12 category and we were beaming with pride at his effort.

The girls ran the children’s course: 1/2 mile for Jane and 1 mile for Emma.  They weren’t slouches either:  Jane took 3rd place in her age group and Emma (with a 7:45! minute mile) finished 1st. 

We love that our kids are active and strong and know how to push themselves toward a goal. 

It was also fun the Grandma Dorrie was around to cheer us on (and help with Faith), especially since Ryan was in the hospital with Broken Arm Seth. 

My  Birthday:

These are the two things I have to say about my birthday

1) I really didn’t like turning 36.  It rounds up to forty and is definitely not young.  I was bothered by how much that age bothered me.

2) I really had a nice day.  You know how you kind of decide you don’t care about your birthday, and you almost kind of wish it would go away, because it’s annoying that people have to plan stuff for you?  Well, I’m glad it didn’t go away.  I celebrated by sleeping in a little, going to a pool with some friends and our kids

and the next night went out to dinner and had dessert at our house with some of our best buddies. 

I also had a bunch of people drop off goodies and small gift cards and little presents during that day and I just felt special and loved.  Plus I also finally got some really good knives from Ryan, which I want to kiss every day while I’m cooking, because I’m so in love with them.

Trip to Utah:

We love visiting Utah, but, I must admit, it’s a little exhausting.  Those of you with Utah ties know it’s great to visit because a million people you know live there, and it’s stressful to visit because a million people you know live there.  We tried to see a few of the million:

Blog friends that have turned into FIRL (Friends in Real Life, for those of you not as hip as me to Internet lingo).

Ryan’s sister Betsy, who entertained us with milkshakes at 4:00pm (Jane asked her cousin: “does your mom do this every day?!),

fun tutus for the moms kids to make,

cherry picking and good conversation.

Ryan’s mission companion and family (no picture, bummer!)

And almost all of my siblings:

We did the obligatory BYU visit, where we had lunch at Stan’s:

reinforced the desire in my kids to be Cougars:

and did the Bean Museum scavenger hunt:

(who’s scarier when angry??)

I have to say…I was keenly aware as I wandered with 5 kids and stroller in tow, that when I went to BYU and saw alumni visiting, looking all tired and laden with messy looking kids, I decided I would never be that un-cool. 

Oh well.

My mom also got married while we were there and the whole event had a sweet, peaceful feeling.  Rick is a good man and we are delighted to have him in our family.  Here are some pictures from the ceremony and the luncheon afterward.  (Side note:  My mom’s on a 3 week honeymoon trip in France, Italy, etc.  How fun is that?!)

(The Romney grandkids at the ceremony)

                         

(My brother Sam and his fiance, Stephanie, Bekah, Kelsie, Luke and Nate)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Saying the words)

 

(Who needs a special Ring Bearer Pillow, when you have a pack of Trident to store the ring in, right Nate?)

 

(The Crazies eating a very yummy lunch at Johnny Carino’s)

Yay!  I’m done with July’s summary. 

How our summer’s going…

As anyone who knows me well can attest, I am a schedule girl.  Schedules make me feel calm.  So summer looms large with all of it’s unscheduled, chock-full-of-kids activities. 

I spent a lot of May and June trying to figure out how I wanted to work the summer.  I realized, last summer, that having 200 things for my kids to do wasn’t the answer.  Someone (there are 4 someones, you know) always didn’t do their stuff and I was always irritated at someone.  But I knew that the teasing allure of non-scheduling is kind of a lie (for me anyway), because here’s what happens:  I wake up and think “oh, hey, we’ll just all lay around in pajamas and just be together.  It’ll be lovely.”  At 10:00, I start yelling “Hey!  This house is crazy and messy and you guys are doing something and you all look too messy for me to enjoy!!  Get dressed, practice piano, pick up this house, mow the lawn!!!”

So, I came up with a pretty good compromise:

I stole this idea from my friend Stacy Julian. (I’m so name dropping.  She is my friend who just happens to be one of the country’s most well-known scrapbooker.  I only read her blog because she’s my friend and terribly creative.  Not because I’ve ever scrapbooked a single page in my entire life.  But I digress.) 

It’s called Summer Bingo.  I filled the days with things I wanted them to do in a week, that were mostly fun and a little bit educational and structured  Notice the squares that read “Have all jobs done by 10am”?  That’s my nod to a schedule.  The BINGO is my nod to un-scheduled.  They have stuff to do if they are bored or bugging me or need money, but no one’s making them do any of it.  OF COURSE, they still have to complete jobs/scriptures/dressing before they play or watch a screen, but that’s normal, right? 

They get a ticket for each BINGO.  A ticket can be redeemed for 50 cents, or 30 minutes of extra screen time, or a popsicle that is better than an otter pop.  So far everyone’s only interested in money.  They haven’t had a ton of BINGOs (the max is 4, I think) but they usually do 10-15 things on the chart and it’s worked out really well. 

This summer has been a nice balance of outside play, family outings, vacations and down time…and for the first summer in a looong time:

I don’t want them to go back to school!

Bingo!

What Seth’s Turn Looks Like:

Universal Parenting Truth #31

 

If you want to make your outing 229 times more fun for your kids…

Involve the city bus.

She’s starting to look like a cancer patient

Seen comics that look like this?

 

 

Well this is my life.  Faith really does this.  All of the time.  (Ryan’s cousin pointed out the other day, when I was whining about it, that you see it in comic strips and as a euphemism for frustration.  No one thinks it’s real!)

In case you haven’t noticed…Faith is a little bit of a challenge.  I’ve had 4 other toddlers and I know about tantrums, and I KNOW that this girl does not have normal tantrum issues.  I cannot figure out how to work with her.  We’ve tried EVERYTHING (and trust me when I say that I am awesomely consistent at stuff like ignoring, removing, not giving in). 

She is extremely willful.  I’ve kind of figured out that she’s a “strong-willed” or “explosive” child.  When things don’t go her way she does any combination of the following:

• screams
• falls on the floor and kicks her legs
• begins to gag and barf
• pulls out handfuls of hair (so upsetting)
• goes on for hours
• writhes and kicks and makes it very difficult for us to physically control her
• tries to bite us and, if that fails, herself

 

She is very hard to calm down, distract, reason with (obviously).  Sometimes when another person gets involved (Emma, Ryan), she will settle down…I think because she doesn’t want to “give in” to the person issuing the directive to buckle in her car seat, eat only on the wood floor, get dressed, not steal her siblings’ stuff, stop reading a book, etc. etc.   She is the WORST when we leave the house, because she knows she can get way more leverage when we are in Target and nowhere near her bedroom.  I think it’s mostly about control and she’s VERY smart about figuring out what buttons to push (hair pulling for Vain Me, barfing on the floor for Clean Ryan).

We’ve prayed and I felt directed to become an “expert” on this type of child, so I checked out a million books and searched the web and I found TONS on Strong-Willed Explosive Children, but nothing for kids under 2-3 years of age. 

Can you help?  Any websites, therapists (in the Spokane area), books, articles, ideas would be so greatly appreciated.  This girl RUNS this house with her moods and tantrums and I literally dread when she wakes up in the morning and I have a big knot in my stomach when I have to go anywhere with her.  I kind of wanted to enjoy my last kid, you know?

No…we live on the other side of the state

Disclaimer:  We use all of our travel money and time, generally, to visit grandparents/family in Utah and California.  This year we made a big effort to save some resources to take a trip with just our family.  We really wanted to just spend time with the kids.  This is why, Seattle-area Friends (Yosts, Andrea, Jeanelle), we had to skip on any extraneous visits.  Next time, okay?

Best traveler:

She slept and was adorable the whole 5 hour trip

 

Best Hotel:

 

Embassy Suites in Bellevue

We never stay in hotels—always cheaping out with relatives.  The kids loved the pool, the two TVs, the breakfast buffet.

 

Best Rockstar:

While everyone enjoyed the Experience Music Project in Seattle, Seth was the most hilarious when he was working on his Sarah McClachlan

 

Worst Tantrumer:

Yeah.  She doesn’t stop when she leaves the city limits.  In case you were wondering.  (Notice the seriously bald head from tantruming hair pulling.)

 

Jane’s Favorite Tourist attraction:

While the kids loved seeing Seattle from airplane’s heights at the Space Needle, Those With A Phobia (me) stayed safely inside the building (except for this picture), while the kids ran like crazies on the deck.

 

Biggest Life Lesson:

The scene of the crime. 

After parental suggestions to allow us to carry the little blue money pouch, Jane’s $12.75 was literally taken from the floor while she did this exhibit at the Discovery Museum.  Seriously:  she went to find it moments after a big crowd of kids swarmed the area…and it was gone.  So sad.

 

Longest Wait to Be a Tightrope Walker:

(walking the tightrope)

(In their safety harnesses)

45 minutes at the Discovery Museum’s Circus exhibit.  It was cool in the end, though.

 

Coolest Use of the Crazy Mirrors:

I’m awarding this to myself.  Not my most attractive look, however.

 

Person who spent the entire time in children’s musuem playing Giant Chess:

 

Favorite Day:

Saturday was super sunny!

We did Pike Place Market,

 

walked the Piers,

 

had lunch at Ivars,

visited the Aquarium,

and took an Argosy cruise.

 

Everyone else’s favorite Tourist Attraction:

The Aquarium. 

Loved the aquarium diver presentation,

the feeding of the otters

and the touching pools.

 

The only 4th of July in history where I didn’t take pictures:

(I told you I didn’t take any pictures!  Probably because we didn’t anything remotely 4th of July-ish)

 

The Biggest Spender:

I know!  He must have must a conscious effort to not say one word about the hundred’s of dollars we were spending eating out, at museums and the market.  It was so stress free because of his concerted high-rolling efforts.  Thanks, honey!

 

BEST value:

The city pass.  Seriously.  Go to the website (here) to see if they have one in a city near you.  We went to everything and saved tons of money.  Much easier just to spend the money once (to buy the booklet) and then walk into everything (ahead of the ticket line, btw) without paying.

 

Prettiest Zoo:

Really.  Seattle’s Woodland Zoo is gorgeous and just the right length (~3 hours). 

 

Funniest reaction to the bird eating off of the birdseed stick:

(Faith wasn’t a fan)

 

Funnest Meal:

Ivars and the seagulls, of course.

 

Biggest contributor to Seattle’s Tourist Economy:

Seen here modeling one of her purchases. 

Person who wanted to hog the most pictures:

(Every single statue: “Take a picture of me on this one, Mom!”)

 

Best trip in a LOOONG time:

Well…you just read about it!

Quick Quote #40

 

Seth: “Mom. I had eggs and those flat things for breakfast.” 

(Since the flat things were bought at McDonalds, one could understand why Seth might have a hard time identifying them as actual Pancakes.)

Join the Club

 

Current members,

Gabe:

Emma:

and Mom:

would like to welcome our newest member,

Seth:

to

the Broken Arm Club! 

Welcome, Seth!

(We were playing at a park downtown and Emma was helping Seth on the monkey bars.  He slipped and she came running, crying, “It looks really weird!  Seth’s arm is really bad!”  I got him, rushed him to the Emergency Room at the hospital that was 3 minutes away and my mom, who was here, luckily, took all the kids home.  Seth had surgery later that evening to pin his arm (the humerus detached from the elbow).  He stayed overnight, everything went well and was released the next day.  He’s starting to get the hang of moving around with the cast.  The doctors said it would be on for 3-4 weeks.  We’re grateful that we have insurance, money to pay for medical things, modern medicine and a Grandma that could take care of kids for two days!)

Some documentary pictures:

In the ER:

 

Hospital Jammies:

Before surgery, after “Happy Juice”:

Enjoying the service: