Los Valles

Helaman made my bed for me today. It made me laugh how he stacked the pillows (for watching t.v. he told me) and put the little one in the middle. That’s almost how I do it…

We were all very happy this morning. Isaiah actually slept 9 hours straight last night. That’s a first, and I was really excited. Although he did still end up in bed with me for a couple of hours when he woke up at 6:30. That’s a little early for my internal clock. (Right, Amanda?)

When Omar’s home our bed becomes a big party in the morning, and I love it. Helaman comes and gets in with us and we all just cuddle and play for a while. It’s such a nice way to start the day.

As for the broomsticks today….

Helaman wanted to listen to Baby Baluga today, so Omar put in an Mp3 CD we made for him with all the kid music. We play it in our DVD player, so the TV has to be on, and it displays the songs that are playing. Omar was going to skip to Baby Baluga, but Helaman wanted to start at the beginning and “it will get to it”. As he is sitting there looking at the TV he says, “Baby Baluga is number 7 and 8, dad.” How did he know that? He didn’t say. A minutes later he says, “Number 4 is Apples and Bananas.” Now we were even more confused. I asked him what number 10 was and he sat and looked at the screen for a few seconds and then started singing “There was a farmer had a dog and BINGO was his name-o.” That was the right answer. So Omar asked him what number 6 was. He looked at the screen for a while again, and then started sining Baa Baa Black Sheep!

How did he do that? Was it magic? He can’t really be reading it! Has he just memorized the order and associated with numbers and then can count to the song and pick out the number? I have no idea! I’m going with magic for now. Broomsticks.

The rest of the day was spent in Chico. I had to renew my license, and that was the only thing on our list of things to do that actually got done. Omar forgot the book he was supposed to sell back, we never made it to one of the stores we were supposed to go to, Target was sold out of the TV converter boxes… nothing was working. Oddly, it was a fun day, anyway. It’s fun just to be together as a family.

Since we had made the trip, and it was Thursday after all, we went to Thursday Night Market. The fruit and veggies are all coming into season, and we got lots of delicious treats. I am definitely going to miss that about Northern California. I guess we’ll have to visit a lot and stock up.

I was watching House with Omar yesterday. I love this show, but I couldn’t tell you why. I think I feel smart when I watch it. Ha ha ha. Anyway, I think Heavenly Father used it to teach me something very important yesterday.

I couldn’t explain the feeling, even to myself. This is my problem with just about everything. But it is definitely my fish.

House: You’re afraid to change. You would rather imagine that you could escape, instead of actually trying. Because if you fail, then you’ve got nothing. You give up the chance of something real so that you can hold on to hope.

If I keep holding back, I can just believe that if I tried I would be good. And I’m afraid to find out otherwise.

Now the questions is to figure out how to get over it…

Omar’s done! He turned in his final report, took his last final (there’s a lot of finality in that sentence) and walked off of campus at Chico State as a student for the final time. The only thing left to do is graduate. I’m so proud of him. This has been a long hard four years, but he persevered and even shined. He’s graduating on Friday Magna Cum Laude, which means he was in the top 5% for the whole college (he gets a medal and everything). That’s not easy to do in Mechanical Engineering, he’s worked really hard. Helaman’s excited to watch daddy get a medal (just like Curious George). Way to go honey, I’m really proud of you!

We went to Outback tonight to celebrate. That’s been our tradition the day he finishes finals. It doesn’t feel real that it is really all done. In my head, he’s just on Summer break again.

And while I’m being proud and bragging…

I was playing the The Ladybug Game with Helaman today. You have to collect aphids as part of the game. He already had three, and then he drew a card to get three more. “Oh good, now I have six,” says my three-year-old as he adds the numbers in his head. He did it several more times, even figuring out 8+3=11 which I have to think about every time. I think he got his daddy’s genius math brain. He can count to 30 with no mistakes, counts to 10 in Spanish and can “read” numbers to 13. He never ceases to amaze me.

Between him and his already getting into everything 7 month old brother I think they are going to keep me on my toes.

Helaman has been so sweet lately (other than his unexplained random acts of violence). I love to watch him with Ava, he really loves her, and is usually really soft and kind.

I think he’s at the stage where he is starting to learn empathy, and I love to watch him. Tonight we were at my mom’s house for family home evening. Chris was in a bad mood by the end of it. I watched Helaman notice Chris’ unhappy face and then gently try to cheer him up, with such a loving face. I don’t know how to explain what I saw, but I knew what he was feeling as he talked to Chris, and I was so proud of him.

Then when I was saying prayers with him tonight, he prayed, “Please help me take care of Isaiah.” I had prompted him to say something about having fun at preschool tomorrow, but he was worried about much more important things. This is one of those nights when my heart is so happy to be a mommy.

I recently bough a book called “21 Days Closer to Christ from Deseret Book. I’m a very task oriented person, so having an outline of things to do everyday to work on the relationship is really appealing to me. It came in the mail today, so I gave it a quick start. Each day has some suggested scripture readings and a challenge for the day (or week or however long of an interval you want to give each section). I think I am going to define day as a period of time, not really specific, and just move on when I feel like I’m ready.

I’m also going to share my journey here because writing about it helps me reflect and meditate on it, because it will help me stay motivated to keep trying, and because I am grateful for the opportunity to bear testimony of Christ.

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I really enjoyed Stake Conference today, even while contending with two (and sometimes three) boys who have a hard time sitting there in the heat for 2 hours. I didn’t have hands free to take notes, but there are some things I felt that I want to remember.

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So, as I said, it was H*O*T today! Grandpa Steve got his pool all ready, and daddy was home procrastinating finishing his final report, so we decided it was time for a family swim.

Helaman did really well. He was quite ready to go for it without the tube, but he actually jumped in to Omar, which is something we never got him to do last summer. Even at swim lessons, when all the other kids were jumping to their mom’s, he would sit on the side of the pool and slide in to me, very carefully. But today–jump!

It was Isaiah’s first time in the pool. You can tell exactly what he thought of it by looking at this picture. He is naturally curious and adventurous, but this was a bit much. He had loved sitting on the side of pool and kicking his feet.

By the time we were ready to get out, he was getting more brave, but most of the time he spent in the pool was just like this, clinging to me for dear life and looking at it very curiously.

We had lots of fun. I love the water, and Omar has fun when we convince him to get in.

Maybe I’ll get my house with a pool someday afterall…

Boy am I hot today! It’s bad enough that’s it’s over the 100 degree mark with the normal Northern California humidity. It’s bad enough we forgot to get the window fans out and we don’t have air conditioning. It’s bad enough I’m tying this with my laptop on my lap, cooking my legs. All of that heat would have been enough. But no, there’s more…

The California Supreme Court ruled to legalize gay marriage yesterday. Despite the vote of the people, despite the fact that we supposedly live in a democracy, and get to decide these issues, despite the wrongness of it, they did it anyway.

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Helaman’s sweet teacher brought these cute frames for his class to make for mother’s day. He really enjoyed the project and was really proud of the outcome. Too proud to share. As we were walking out of church I said, “Thank you so much for this frame you made for mother’s day, I love it!” And he responded: “You’re welcome, but it’s mine.”

A point he has not varied from. Oh well, at least he put it on the fridge so I’ll get to look at it.

This morning a post on another blog made me curious about the origins of Mother’s Day. In North America it first started with Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1870. She was the author of Battle Hymn of the Republic, but after living through the horrors of the Civil War, called for women to unite in an international mother’s day to celebrate the cause of peace. I was really touched by her poetry.

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts,
Whether your baptism be that of water or of tears
Say firmly:

“We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of
charity, mercy and patience.

“We women of one country
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.”

While I understand the necessity of war, I have always been distraught by the awfulness of it. He words describe thoughts and impressions I’ve had, but never been able to express. I thought it was absolutely beautiful, both in it’s message of peace and it’s tribute to the work that mother’s do, and I really wanted to share.

Happy Mother’s Day!

I sat Isaiah on this chair while I put Helaman’s pajamas on last night. When I turned around, he was standing there grabbing toys. He did really well standing up. Then he would get a toy he wanted and sit on the arm of the chair and play, then stand back up to get another. I couldn’t believe it, even as I watched him. It seems like I just birthed this boy. How has he grown so fast?

Isaiah had his well baby check up yesterday. It looks like he’s got a Hepworth body, tall and skinny. Here’s his stats:

Weight: 16lbs 8 oz (10-25%)

Height: 28.25″ (50-75%)

Head: 44.3 cm (50%)

Dr. Tedford said he’s probably so skinny because he’s so wiggly. He looked and him and just laughed, saying “This kids a character isn’t he? He’s got that look in his eye. I think they call it a ‘pistol’.”

That’s for sure!