Matthew hasn't been into sleeping through the night anymore. For some inexplicable reason the past few weeks he has generally liked to eat at 1:30, 4:30, and 6. Full meals each time, despite our best efforts otherwise. (I guess I'm open to suggestions, but not really. Mostly validation.)
Joseph hasn't been into napping anymore, and loses all composure at the idea of something so simple as "quiet time." (Again, mostly interested in validation, not suggestions.)
So here are some poems that describe how I feel about it.
so much depends
upon
a soft white
pillow
near a warm
blanket
that I get to sleep on
for more than
three hours at a time
And another:
Two roads diverged in a wood.
I chose the road that led to more sleep.
And that has made all the difference.
And another:
Do you like to sleep and nap?
I do not like to sleep and nap.
I do not like them, Mom and Pap.
Would you sleep next to a box?
Would you co-sleep with a fox?
Not near a box, not with a fox.
I do not like to sleep or nap.
I do not like to, Mom and Pap.
You may like it, you will see.
You may like to sleep past three.
I do not like to sleep past three.
Just let me suck that milk, Mommy!
I do not like to sleep at night,
Nor in the day, it is too bright!
I do not like to sleep or nap.
I do not like to, Mom and Pap.
(Kevin thinks Pap is a weird word. Sorry.)
And finally, since I am too tired to blog about real life (visits from family, carbon monoxide adventures while making applesauce, etc.) here is the story from what I did a year ago. Because it actually has been hanging over me.
Once upon a time I visited my grandma in Kansas a year ago at this time while Kevin was in Paris and my mom came out too and we went to a pumpkin patch and I played "Royals" on the carillon at KU and watched the Royals lose to the Giants on TV and had a great time.
Today was a good day. I managed to catch a video of two of my favorite things -- Joseph dancing and Matthew laughing. I had a hard time catching Matthew's face ever, but you can take my word that it was pretty cute.
Actually, the video catches a few more details of the day than just that. For example:
Joseph is wearing a too-small Superman jacket he got for Christmas two years ago. He is wearing a Superman shirt underneath that jacket and wears hand-me-down Superman shoes that are too big for him whenever he can (he always takes them and his socks off to go into the sandbox). Unlike when he was acting out Buzz Lightyear, he doesn't know any quotes from Superman, so when we went on a walk today all he could say was, "I'm . . . Superman!!! ssssssssssSuperman!" over and over. He also likes to sing "Believe it or Not" a lot.
The pink fabric in the background came from when I was cutting Joseph's hair (somehow I convinced him to watch Mr. Rogers instead of Mater's Tall Tales for the haircut this time). I have been pretty good at giving him a haircut every 6 weeks the past few times, including the day that I gave birth to Matthew. So that means Matthew is 12 weeks old today! Wow!
The reason we wanted to watch Monster in the Mirror is because I had set Matthew in front of the mirror on his tummy and side today, and when I sang "saw a baby in the mirror" it got Joseph excited.
Those two have been so funny today. I don't know how it started, but Joseph was laughing which got Matthew laughing, which got Joseph laughing more, which got Matthew laughing more, which made him spit up all over me. Then after I cleaned that up the process repeated, only the next time Matthew spat up on the other side of me (the unprotected side). I think Joseph is becoming really fond of him, and Matthew loves having someone closer to his size to watch.
The mattress cover hanging in the background reminds me that Matthew finally slept well again last night after a few weeks of waking up progressively earlier every night. I woke up at 3 briefly, realized that Matthew wasn't awake yet, thought, "Oh well," and fell back asleep for another hour. Then he came in and soaked through everything, so everything got washed. (But none of Joseph's sheets last night! Yay! Come to think of it, today also included the third (?) real full-length nap Joseph has taken in the past two weeks, with the last being about a week ago. No wonder today was a good day.)
The little bits of clutter here and there remind me that we spent a lot of time outside today enjoying beautiful weather instead of staying inside cleaning (although every time I was inside I started another load of laundry). And they remind me that my parents and brother were in town! . . . and I need to return that air mattress.
Overall, good day.
It will be even better once all that laundry is folded.
I realized a problem with sharing poems from when I was 15-16. The poems are mostly just fine. If these were from when I was 9-10, we could laugh at how cute and silly I was.
Instead we're left with poems that are not really bad nor particularly good, so I don't quite know how to react to them.
But this one I'm okay with laughing at. It's almost good, and almost deep, but . . . oh boy. If you like it, great. If not, I don't blame you.
Tis better to be loved than beautiful
For though the two may sometimes seem the same
Above the eyes, the heart is dutiful
To that same soul to which you gave your name.
Like earth's eroding rocks and melting caps,
A woman's face will wrinkle and degrade.
A love skin-deep would bear no more perhaps
And then relinquish vows that had been made.
Yet when the shining purity of soul
Does bind each heart to heart beyond all age,
A change in looks does not their love annul
But simply moves the clutter from the stage
Whereon is found eternal light so deep
That only those with love its pow'r can keep.
So, good message, right? Marry for more than looks. Some of the lines don't make sense to me but I think I've got the general gist.
But oh, man . . . I have seen several women age some throughout my life (I mean, I've known some people for about a quarter century now), and "earth's eroding rocks and melting caps" really does not seem like a fair description of the process. Most do it quite gracefully. And men age too, by the way.
Just like I said here:
Good thing we've both got a "shining purity of soul" to bind our hearts beyond all age so we won't relinquish vows due to wrinkles and hairs.
Snapshot might not be the right word, come to think of it, because I will write a lot. But I just wanted to describe what we have been up to this fall. Just so I can remember it later.
So let's start with Kevin, whose name is in the blog address but is rarely featured in the blog. He is in the 4th (and probably final) year of his PhD and staying busy. He is currently a graduate student instructor (GSI) for Digital Signal Processing, which means lots of helping with homework, teaching discussions (not the missionary kind), preparing practice problems, and writing up solutions. He also does a fair amount of writing and is working right now on a paper about neural stuff for epileptic patients (I forget what he said exactly). He also is working on revising a paper about sunspots. And he has a big paper that has been put on the backburner about something else. He said a high level description of his research is "I do math, and then apply it to stuff," which leads to fun applications and lots of code. (Okay, I'm really not doing his research justice, and I really do understand it better than it sounds like here, but I'm tired so just look at his website if you really care.) There are seminars and Data Science Center grand openings and conferences on campus which also fill up his days.
After a long workday, he rides his bike home and helps with dinner, plays with the kids, chats with the neighbors, and switches off with me for dishes/bedtime duty. Since he's been released from his building representative/tech guy (no more Saturday morning cleanings, yay!) and called to be 2nd counselor in Young Men's, on Wednesday nights he heads over to the church for Mutual, which lasts for an hour except when it doesn't. Besides that, he usually has a little bit to do in the evenings -- peer review a paper, run some code, prepare problems for class -- but he doesn't spend more time on those than he has to.
Kyra mostly feeds small children. We still go to Institute on Mondays, Morning Out/library story time on Tuesdays, exercise on Wednesdays and Fridays, preschool on Thursdays, and free lunch at the institute on Fridays. Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons have a half hour of music lessons each (one where I teach, one where I learn . . . more on that later), but cleaning/traveling usually makes the lesson occupy a lot longer time so I usually make a crockpot meal those days. Sometimes I manage to exercise in the mornings, but that was mostly one week where I would wake up at 6 and couldn't get back to sleep. I try to keep the house clean, but it works best when I know for sure someone is coming over. I also end up having several children run in and out of the house multiple times each day while I'm nursing (more on that later), and I do a bit of formal babysitting when my conscience pricks me.
This assignment from 17 years ago is starting to prove strangely prophetic, though it'll probably be more like 2-3 kids and probably not Cache County.
For fun, I call my mom or sisters, gchat with Kevin or my mom or sister, take blurry and grainy pictures of Matthew, chat with neighbors, reread YA fiction, read blogs, and write blog posts. Like this one. There is always a long list of things that don't get done each day, but I can always count on nursing and changing diapers.
He really wasn't about to fall, despite appearances.
Joseph alternates between being Buzz Lightyear and Superman, with a few other superheroes thrown in. But he responds to Joseph again, which is great. He pretty much plays all day, and most of it outside. Last week we had a few cold days and I can't even remember what he could have done those days because most of his free time is spent with 4-year-old boys running around our section of Northwood, sometimes playing in friends' basements. But mostly ours, maybe because we have a rule that our toys stay inside the house. Most every day I can count on at least 4 boys going down to our basement and playing with trains and Legos and trampolines and who knows what else. Then one of them usually comes up and says, "I'm hungry," so the rest of them become hungry too. So I feed them baby carrots and they scarf them down like nobody's business. Last week I made a spinach artichoke dip and crepes for dinner and they were all there helping stir and dump. Yesterday they played in the basement during my piano lesson and then asked to watch a movie. I said it was nice outside so they should go play instead, and even let them take the trampoline outside as an incentive. Most of the time it's great to have so many little boys in the house.
But back to Joseph. He naps most days, and needs a nap every day. If we keep him well rested and well fed he is pretty pleasant and accommodating. If not, that's what I checked all those parenting books out from the library for. He likes to sound out words, sing "You're okay" to Matthew, accompany me every time I go up or down a flight of stairs, help me in the kitchen, watch Daniel Tiger and Sesame Street, take baths sans shampoo, act like a superhero, fight imaginary bad guys like Emperor Zurg and King Noah, do kickboxing, use play-doh, play in the sandbox, build airplanes and monsters out of Legos, and just play play play. He is learning how to dress himself, fold his clothes, and color by himself, though he usually wants help with all of those. He's a lot of fun.
And so is Matthew. He weighed 13.5 pounds at his appointment today, though I think that was high since his diaper was quite wet 10 minutes later. He still has a full head of hair with only a little bald spot in back, and he can hold up that head entirely by himself. He smiles easily, is on the verge of laughing, and cries only when necessary (such as when he is subjected to the indignity of a bath). He nurses well, though he still sometimes pops off when he needs to burp and tries over and over to latch on, getting madder and madder while we're both getting wetter and wetter, and then finally he burps and we can get back to it. He rarely has blowouts but he spits up a fair amount (leading to me singing songs like "Drip drip drip little Matthew shower" or "He's a bit of a spitter upper"). He likes attention a lot, so it usually isn't super easy to get lots of things done, but every now and then he just lies contentedly in his swing or on a blanket looking around the room.
Or on the couch.
Or outside.
Hello bug.
He has discovered his hands and his feet, and they belong in his mouth. His hands usually have lint in them from him clenching them so tightly. It usually isn't easy to get him to nap in his crib during the day as it takes just as long to get him down for a nap as the nap itself (like 20 minutes each), but he naps okay other places (though still not for very long). His last feeding is usually 8-9:30 pm and wakes up either around 3 when he's going through a growth spurt or around 6:30-7:30 when he isn't. Which is awesome either way. In Matthew's baby blessing (that'll be another blog post), Kevin said that he was excited to receive a body, which I feel like has been really true.
Although each day has its ups and downs, life is about as good as it gets.
Just ask Superman.
(I know this show isn't about Superman, but Joseph still considers it a song about Superman.)
Okay, while I'm doing videos, here are a few more. :) (Mostly for grandparents.)
This video is cute enough, but it's just funny listening to the kids playing in the background
Postscript: As long as this post is, I still felt like it was incomplete. So the truth is, I asked Kevin to come home early today, and when he came in at 4:50 I was just standing in the kitchen sobbing, releasing all sorts of pent-up emotions. I had wanted to do all sorts of things today (like showering and service and stuff) but I didn't get to any of it because after going to Matthew's appointment and buying groceries during Joseph's preschool, all sorts of things came up. I spent a lot of the day watching other kids, tracking down Joseph who never ended up taking a nap and went running off with friends, waiting around for things that never ended up happening, inviting children to leave my house because I was tired of messes, and holding Matthew in my lap stroking his foot because otherwise he would scream (yay vaccinations). It's all fine now, and I'm not really saying this for sympathy, but I feel like it's part of the snapshot that's worth remembering. Even when life is practically perfect it's still got its moments. :)
As promised, I'm going to subject you all to a foray into my 15-year old mind via some poems I wrote back then. Today seemed like a good day to do it because it's a crisp, gorgeous first day of October.
A whisper of the winter
Lingers in the air,
But only for a moment
For we are not quite there.
But then the whisper widens
Into a sound of chill
Its speaking scares the sun away
Yet summer stays here still.
I think this was probably supposed to have more stanzas where it got progressively colder, But I'm okay leaving it where it's at. We don't need to think about cold yet.
And, while we're at it . . . here's one more autumn poem that you might not know. I found it in the 1836 LDS hymnbook, and I'm not sure who wrote it. Maybe Emma Smith herself?
The sun that declines in the far western sky,
Has roll'd o'er our heads till the summer's gone by;
And hush'd are the notes of the warblers of spring
That in the green bow'r did exultingly sing.
The changes of autumn already appear;
A harvest of plenty has crown'd the glad year;
While soft smiling zephyrs, our fancies to please,
Bring odors of joy from the laden fruit trees.
As the summer of youth passes swiftly along,
And silvery locks soon our temples adorn:
So the fair smiling landscape and flowery lawn,
Though lost is their beauty-- their glory has come:
O when the sweet summer of life shall have fled,
Her joys and her sorrows entomb'd with the dead,
Then may we by faith like good Enoch arise,
And be crown'd with the just in the midst of the skies.
Descend with the Savior in glory profound,
And reign in perfection when satan is bound;
When love and sweet union together shall blend,
And peace, gentle peace, like a river extend.
Well, I guess it's not totally about autumn. But it's still nice.
