Did you know that if your mom takes the jam out of the fridge and sets it on the counter while waiting for a bagel to pop out of the toaster, but you wanted to get the jam out yourself, the world may come to an end and you must scream “Mom you don’t do very nice fings” and “You make me feel really, really mad.” and “DON’T SAY THE WORD!!” over and over again?

Did you know that the prospect of making your bed all by yourself while the rest of the family goes downstairs can cause your stomach to ache, your legs to shrivel up in pain, your fingers to tingle too much to move, and your back to itch, all while you melt into a heap and wail like the boogey-man is after you?

Did you know that if you’re ten months old your high chair is a torture chamber that causes ear splitting screaming?

Well, I discovered all of these things at once this morning and had three kids screaming hysterically for a good solid 45 minutes while I begged and pleaded for them to just let me eat half a bowl of Cheerios so that I could see straight and maybe even think a little bit.

Barry has decided he wants to go into work earlier so that he can come home earlier, so i get mornings to myself again. And my mom was also here visiting for the past week and a half and has sadly returned to her regular life. And we stayed up late last night and watched the BYU-idaho dance teams perform… anyway, it was a crazy morning I momentarily thought I might not survive.

And, there’s more i have to process. A family in our ward lost most of their worldly possesions in a house fire last night. So, I spent the day on the phone tracking them down, finding what they need, answering phone call after phone call of questions and offers for help…

It feels good to be busy serving and knowing that my efforts are really needed…

Anyway, so much to do… so little time. Imagine not having underwear or shoes, or even a toothbrush.

In the midst of our game of hide and seek tonight Jonah called Barry a, “Liar, liar, fire on pants!” I’m so happy to be his momma.

Today we sat outside in the fresh spring air and finished reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It’s kind of like coming full cirlce. Just before Brenna turned three she pulled it off the shelf and brought it to me saying, “Read this! Read, read, read, read…” Well, I took it and opened it thinking, “She’ll last two seconds and then I can go get something done.” But, instead, we finished the entire book in two days. I figured she wasn’t really getting what was going on, but realized that she was playing with her plastic animals calling one Aslan and asking for protection from the White Witch.

I’m glad that I’ve kept up with the reading novels, even though my kids are so young. I think adults often underestimate what kids are capable of understanding. We also think they’re not listening when they really are. Jonah has not been one to sit on my lap and listen to a book without pictures, but he knows everything that happened to little Sophie in The BFG and loves Harry Potter. He normally plays with toys and comes and goes out of the room as Barry or I read, but he gets it none the less. I love it that his play is based on Shel Silverstien poems rather than Bob the Builder or Dora. I’m thankful that this is something I stumbled upon and stuck with it.

Brenna’s almost five now. I thought it’d be fun to post a list of the books we’ve read since the first time we read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Charlotte’s Web
Stuart Little
Little House in the Big Woods
Little House on the Prairie
Farmer Boy
On the Banks of Plum Creek
Trumpet of the Swan
Black Beauty
The Mouse and the Motorcycle
The BFG
Peter Pan
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Matilda
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (w/ Dad)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (w/ Dad)
The Magician’s Nephew
Where the Sidewalk Ends (w/ Dad)
Falling up (w/ Dad)
A Light in the Attic (w/ Dad)
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

I’m not sure what we’ll start next. We may just continue with the Chronicles of Narnia, but Spring is getting me itchy to read Laddie again and share it with my family.

but really, not much else unless it’s Cyberchase or Zoom after the house is picked up in the evening. So, what has inspired my daughter to give Jonah a makeover?

Brenna: Okay Jonah. We’re done playing gymnastics. It’s time for your makeover. We need to get you looking good.

Jonah: (dutifully follows)

Brenna: I’m the makeup artist. First I’ll do your hair. Let’s slick it down…

This is all going on at the moment I’m writing this.

I remember dressing my little brother Ben up in my clothes. There was one time we went all out with fake boobs and everything. My Dad’s only comment was, “You look a little lopsided there.”

Now Ben’s a bartender who cross dresses on Saturdays for extra tips.

Hmmmmm…..

No one has rhuematic fever. We have actually all stopped puking.

Last night I went to bed at 6:00 because I was completely delusional and freezing cold, and too hot. It was a good thing I did, so that I could get some rest in between Jonah getting up. It seems like he got up 8 times. That could be an exaggeration—but the screaming!! The irrational whining!! Will he ever stop being two?!

One time he got up because he wanted wrapped up. I went into his room with him and attempted to put him in bed so I could wrap him up. “NOOOOO! It’s not the right way. I need the fish part here (pointing to his forehead) so I can be all snuggled up and hold it.” I tried again. “You have to wrap me up OUT of bed!!”

“Jonah, use a quiet voice. Brenna is sleeping.”

“No. I am waking up. I need a waking up voice.”

“Okay, let’s wrap you up. Climb up in bed.”

“No. I can’t do the truth, it’s too tricky.”

This went on for at least half an hour. Every time he got put in bed he screamed irrational things about how the truth is too tricky. Exasserbated, we finally resorted to moving Brenna to the spare bedroom and shut the door on Jonah. I’m suprised the neighbors didn’t call to complain that we had woken them up because Jonah just laid by the door, kicking and wailing and screaming that whatever way we wrapped him up was not the truth.

“That’s not the truth!!!! The truth is too tricky!!!!”

Poor Barry didn’t get much sleep, but Logan slept like a log.

Jonah is very proud of his song that he made up all by himself. He’s been singing it all day. (If you can’t figure it out–it’s to the tune of “Farmer in the Dell.”)

I love the dell,
I love the dell,
I love the dell, the dell,
the dell, the dell, the dell.

Without any farmerinit (”farmer in it” is all one word)
Without any farmerinit
I love the dell, the dell,
Without any farmerinit

I have many things to be thankful for this Thanksgiving weekend. Barry was tired of having my rabbits in the garage, so he built them a two story condo with a built in fort. They are now winterized, even though Lizzie still wasn’t smart enough to take shelter in the rain.

Here’s what else is new in no particular order:

So, not super exciting, but good for me. It is really cold and rainy. It’s winter in Ohio. The sun will come out…

in May.

CAN I HAVE ANOTHER PIECE OF CANDY?!? I don’t know how to adequately translate the yelling-screaming earsplitting hysteria that is my house the day after Halloween.

I think Halloween is fun. I love thinking of ways to turn my kids into their favorite animal or a robot from outer space. Barry really had fun this year and turned the bike trailer into a spaceship, and we had hopes of making a cool space movie in our costumes, but our video camera is broken. Trick-or-Treating was a blast. It was so cute to hear Jonah talk like a robot to everyone he could—but now there’s the candy.

It is the bane of my existence. I have transformed from fun mom to Candy Police.

I had a friend in Albuquerque who let her six kids eat ALL of their Halloween candy in one day. They were sick for a day or two, and then she didn’t have to worry about it anymore.

But my kids are so little. I’m afraid of what might happen if they really ate all the sugar they want.

So…I’m enduring my earsplitting headache for now…

and the candy may end up in the garbage.

Brenna’s Primary lesson yesterday was about honesty. At the end of the lesson the kids just got to color and Brenna figured out how to write this all by herself. Yes, my four year old is a phonics genius!! And, she even put a period at the end of her sentance!!

(It’s supposed to say “I can be truthful for others.”)

This is a treasure.

I have more pictures to add. I took some on our good day on Friday, you know, the day I bathed all three of my children. Well, I felt so ambitious, and my kids were too clean, we had to make play dough for school. What mother in her right mind would make play dough for her freshly bathed children? I don’t know. I obviously wasn’t in my right mind, and now light blue (food coloring just isn’t potent enough to make anything other than grayish ugly light blue) salt dough is smashed into my dining area carpet. (Someday when we’re rich we will put tile down in the dining area. Carpet and eating toddlers or play dough playing are definitely not a good combination.) So, my good day got a little stressful…but then, while I was trying to clean up the salt dough mess, Jonah went to the bathroom by himself. Which was fine until he washed his hands and filled the sink up , and then tried to scrub it with half a roll of toilet paper. Wet toilet paper doesn’t have a whole lot of scrubbing power, but it sure is fun to watch it break up to little bits in the sink full of water, then pull the plug and watch it go down the drain–for awhile. Because eventually it stops going down the drain because it is completely clogged. Anyway, my day was pretty good until then. I didn’t take pictures of any of that, though. I just wanted to run away.

So we went outside and spread out some blankets under a tree and read a little bit of Wind in the Willows. The kids were being good, so I gave them suckers. I simply had to ruin the clean kid thing even further by letting Jonah drench himself in sticky slobber. (You have to click on this picture to get the full effect of the slobber. I mean, there is some slobber!)

Barry unclogged the sink. He can do anything.

We went for a pretty fall walk yesterday, so I have to include these pictures too.

Jonah: Is that the neighbor’s house? (pointing out the window)
Me: Yep.
Jonah: Why do the neighbors have a house?
Me: So they have a place to live.
Jonah: No! But they do bad fings. They knock over trees and gates and mailboxes. And they do bad fings and knock over fings and they have big horns. They bonk fings with big horns here and here (waving his hand over his face–nose and forehead). No, neighbors can’t have houses, they bonk them down with their horns and do mean fings and…
Me: Neighbors are people, silly. They don’t have horns. They need to live in houses like us.
Jonah: Oh.