Update

Remember that wind the other night? It blew down one of those little trees out there. Squint and blow up the picture and you can see her down in the neighbor's yard. 

I told you it was windy. 

Tonight when I was reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom for the one zillionth time and Evan and Andrew were "reading" along with me, I looked up at the ceiling and rattled off the last page...something about a full moon and A being out of bed, etc...I looks up and knew that soon the babies would all be in bed. Those last 10 minutes are the best and the worst. So close! So close to bed time! 

Because bed time is the best. 

I know I will miss all these things one day! These messes and the harried half hour before all kids are asleep. I will miss it. But for now, bed time is just the very best. 

An update on Sickuary: Avery and Andrew have a cold and cough and fevers. 

 Avery stayed home from school today and helped Andrew paint and go potty and stuff. She was fun to have around. 

But Sickuary, man. The entire month one of us has been sick. 

Oh and I am out of kids Ibuprofen and Tylenol. I made up a cocktail from the dregs of both bottles. 

There's about 5mil of tylonal and 5mil of ibu mixed together in the plastic little shot glass thingy ready to go in case Avery's especially miserable in the night. 

That's ok, right? 

Tomorrow I will buy a Costco sized bottle or two. 

My dear Evan. 

The highs are high and the lows are low with him. 

He was so excited to be in the newspaper. I'm so proud of how smart he is. He is the details guy. 

Anyway. 

Jim gets home tomorrow! 

Last night was a particularly ugly half hour before bed time. I was ugly. 

Avery said "this whole family needs daddy to come home."

Yelling at the Wind

All the kids are tucked in bed and the wind is howling around the windows outside. Every so often the whole house shivers when a big gust blows hard enough.

From Evan's room I hear him growling and whining at how loud it is. 

Then he yells "Stop! It's too loud!"

I yell across the hall, "Evan! Yelling at the wind won't make it stop."

"Then how are we going to make it be quiet?"

"We can't. Just go to sleep."

Make sure and read that dialogue in angry mom voice and whiny tired lunatic voice.

Do not mistake it for a loving, teaching moment. It was yelled in annoyance to each other from across the dark hallway. 

But. The sentence that I yelled "yelling at the wind won't make it stop" is a poignant one for me right now. I think it's the seasonal affective disorder talking, but this world is too scary and being a mom is too hard, and I don't know how to do it. I really don't. There is too much that can go wrong, and it surely will happen any minute. I don't even want to talk about my specific worries because saying them out loud means they will for sure happen. 

The thing is, we had a really good day today. Jim is in Las Vegas for the week for recurrent training, and today was a...

**holy cow that was the biggest gust of wind. so scary! my heart is thumping and my armpits got itchy for a minute. I thought for sure the window was going to bust open. **

...today was a good day. The kids got home from school and we ate a healthy dinner and did homework and started a puzzle and watched a dvd from the library where Dora travels around the world - so the kids were super into it.

But in the back of my mind there is always the nagging anxiety of fears. 

So, I don't like winter. 

I need it to be light. The farmers of old celebrated Solstice because it meant the sun would return and they would be able to grow food and survive. 

I celebrate Solstice because it means that soon...maybe near the end of February, beginning of March, the signs of spring will start showing themselves, and these anxious thoughts will be pushed out by more daylight and warmth. 

That's where I am right now. 

But let's refocus on the above picture of Evan up there. See his teeth? They were really loose in that picture, and a little out of alignment. 

Then one morning he got out of bed and hit his mouth on the bunk bed ladder, knocking out a tooth. 

Then yesterday we took Jim to the airport, and he tried to hug Evan, but Evan pulled away, playing hard to get, and Jim accidentally punched out his other tooth. 

Thank goodness. I do not like dangly loose teeth. 

Tonight as he was working on his math, I watched as he talked with a tongue that had no boundaries, and I smiled. I love this little toothless phase of life. First and second grader mouths go through big changes...and it's a bit scary. haha

The road to Blaine from our house follows along the coast of Drayton Harbor. 

The other day there was a big mass of sandpipers flying around in formation. They drifted to and fro like a wisp of smoke, sometimes elongated, sometimes bunched into a big mass. 

When they would veer right, they were the color of shiny silver. Veer left, and they all turned a grey/white.

They held the pace of my car for a good stretch of road, and as I watched their instinctual acrobatics, I kept whispering to my empty car, "whoa." 

It was like watching art. 

I'm 37 years old. 

I prefer chocolate chip cookies to cake.

I prefer a burger and fries for my birthday lunch. 

I have been eyeballing vanilla beans at Costco for a few months now. I would pick up the package and flip it around in my hands. There are two glass vials with 5 pods in each. I would put it in my cart...then take it back out and walk away. I couldn't justify spending that much for 10 pods of vanilla bean.

Then I turned 37, and I marched up to those vials and triumphantly put them in my cart declaring "This is what a 37 year old woman buys herself for her birthday!" 

I've spent most of my mom life watching chefs on Food Network slice through a vanilla pod and scrape out the beans. At 37 years old,  I wanted to make myself some ice cream, scraping out the pulp of a vanilla bean with my own knife. 

We attended our friend Bailey's baptism Saturday. 

It was a beautiful baptism. 

It wasn't my child's baptism, so I'm not sure why it struck me so bluntly. There were things that went amiss during the day for my friend...little things like cold water in the font, a broken down car, a popped balloon...things that don't totally matter. But from the moment the baptism started, there was a calm spirit in the room. It was loving and...thick. 

It was short and simple, and we lingered over refreshments for a while after, then ate lunch at their home. 

But the feeling of peace and happiness of the day lingered with me for a while. I discussed it with Lisa a few days later, and we concluded a few things that I don't really know how to expand upon here. I keep typing stuff and deleting it because it's not my story to tell, so it isn't forming. 

 I will just say that there was light in that room. Light that was needed for many people who were in the room. 

On the small end of my spectrum, it was light to chase away the winter darkness. On the big end of others' spectrum, it was light to show the way to happiness and peace. 

So, to sum up, I really do have so much light in my life. 

My brain knows that. 

Breaking the Ice

In our years of living here, there has never been a winter this cold for this long. 

All the water places are frozen. All the bogs, ponds, drainage ditches...frozen. 

Ice is the neatest! I don't know the science behind it, but it defies my logic. 

This fossil would make sense if it was indented in the ice, 

but it's an inside out fossil! Those bumps are risen in the ice. So strange! 

It's all fun and games until one of the kids slips and falls and wants to go home. 

Sickuary

When I start blogging in my head, that means it's time to blog on the internet.

So, I got a stomach bug. It was the worst.

Hmm. It was so much more entertaining to talk about in my head.

No but really, I was laid out flat for two days, then was only running on fumes for another two days. The good news is that Jim was here and he was the champion. He was a basically a single dad while I was sleeping in bed for days. At one point I was so sick of being sick, I cried into my pillow and texted Jim to "pray for me".

It's so interesting listening to your family go on with their normal life from upstairs. I loved hearing Andrew's little voice say things to Jim. Then he would burst into spontaneous songs like "happy birthday" and "let it go" and "my Christmas tree".

When Evan walked in the door from school, the immediate first words out of his mouth were "where's mommy?"
and Jim said "hi buddy how was school?"
"hi but where's mommy?"

Then Avery was in her bedroom singing a made up song totally loud for close to twenty minutes.

Once or twice I would wander down stairs and sit on the piano bench and not touch anyone, keeping my germs to myself. I missed them. Remember how I need a "hit" of cuddling with my kids? I couldn't get a fix for about three days. It was so hard.

Sunday, Evan said he wasn't feeling well. While everyone else went to church, we both went to our beds and slept. Then he threw up in the evening.

When I tuck all the kids in at night, I set them up with a bowl set upon a towel in case there is night puking.
Around 12:30, Evan showed up at my bedside,
"did you throw up?"
"no I have a bloody nose".

So we dealt with that and the rest of the night went on without any more incidents. In the morning there was blood on his bed, my bed, and the bathroom floor. But it wasn't throw up, so that's a win.

Remember our Christmas vacation in St. George ended with Andrew throwing up? Well, by my count, we are about 80% done with the pukes in the Larsen home, right? At least we are getting it out of the way early, and won't have to worry about it for the rest of the winter, right?! Giant smiley face.

Jim sent me this picture. They went out for lunch.

Evan made his own sandwich one day while I was doing laundry and running on fumes. 

I don't know if that seems like a big deal to you, but let me repeat:

Evan made his own sandwich. He got bread, he got out the meat, he got out some cheese. He put them together in an orderly fashion and ate it. He ate the crust and he ate it without it being cut in half symmetrically. 

Andrew is 4

Andrew.

In the morning on his birthday, I picked him up. He wrapped his arms and legs around me and rested his head on my shoulder saying, "cozy" over and over.

He has many movies memorized. Tonight he said a line from Matilda "daddy you're a crook. that's illegal."

He has the book Chica Chica Boom Boom memorized. We read it to him every night per his request. He reads along.

Jim walked upstairs today and Andrew had his pants off. They were wet from being peed on.

He took Evan's world map puzzle pieces and put some pieces in his mouth, bit on some, and spit on some others.

He let out an absolute squeal of joy when he unwrapped his present that was Ramone. And then later in the night when UPS finally delivered his other gift - Flo - there were more squeals. All Christmas morning and all birthday he has been begging for Flo. Where's Flo? Flo-ooo? And now he has them added to the collection.

All markers are up high so that he can't get into them. Otherwise he writes all over himself.

I feel as though I have a toddler around the house because he is up to no good very often. I'm not sure what that's all about, but it better be a phase that is on it's way out.

He puts things in his mouth that he knows he shouldn't (rocks, cars, legos,) just to see what I'm gonna do about it.

He is a Sunbeam now. He sat by Hunter (who's in CTR 4) for most of the time, and tried to make a run for it once. Joe caught him and held him on his lap until it was time to go to class.

He refused to take a Sunbeam picture for me.

And this is the only church outfit that he approves. He doesn't allow button up shirts. 

I chased him around, trying to get a sunbeam picture.

nope

These kids let me take a 

CTR 6 and Valiant 8 picture...

No sunbeam. 

He must approve each article of clothing before allowing it to be put upon his body. I hold up a shirt - he looks it up and down - then gives a nod or a wave of the hand. Pants? How about these? No? Yes?  These are important decisions.

I asked him what he wants for his birthday dessert?

Cookies.

So this is what we had. It was super delicious. 

Happy birthday you crazy kid. 

Christmas

On the flight to Vegas, they assigned me a seat in the emergency exit row, and children are not allowed in that row. So Jim and the kids sat up there, and I sat back here with tons of leg room, the row to myself, and no children. It was a little bit of a vacation before the vacation. 

I read "The Nightingale". (see my goodreads for the review)

Christmas morning is so fun. All day we play and play and tip toe around the messes and games. 

And also, it snowed on Christmas day. St. George gave us a "white-ish Christmas".

Evan can follow the lego instructions all by himself. It is fun to watch.

These pictures are out of order, but I care not. 

This was Christmas eve. Morgan and Avery were talking about Christmas under the table. 

We went on a walk down Hell Hole path. It was kinda a long hike for the kids and for Grandpa who is still somewhat recovering from his back surgery. 

All I asked for Christmas was a night get away with Jim. We stayed at the Inn on the Cliff. Here was our view.

Here was our breakfast in bed, delivered to our door. 

I will throw a nugget of honesty in here and say that I am glad Christmas is over. It is a relief.

Hopefully I don't feel this way every year, but this year I do. I had moments of enjoying it, but over all, it just starts to suffocate me. I'm not sure how to make it less suffocating. Perhaps we will figure it out.