The Forgotten Middle Child

I've been creating labels for my posts and just noticed that, although she is mentioned a few times, I don't have any posts dedicated just to Sarah (typical forgotten middle child).

SOME OF MY FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT SARAH:

1. Sarah has been my easiest child. When she was 3, I was pregnant with Abby and was put on full bedrest for 12 weeks. We had moved to Utah just 1 1/2 weeks before, and we didn't know anyone. I was so worried about what I was going to do with her. We had help from lots of family members who took turns coming into town, but on the days when I didn't have any help, Sarah couldn't have been any easier. She just hung out with me watching movies or playing with her animals all day long.

2. Sarah is the most dedicated animal nut I know. She refers to people as humans, like she's not sure that she's one of them. She used to want to be a lion when she grew up (a boy lion because they have cool manes). She blows holes in the knees of her pants within days because she crawls everywhere pretending to be an animal. When she was four, she had several imaginary pets. When a neighbor asked her about her "pets," he went through a whole list of animals (lion, horse, racoon, giraffe, elephant, cow, etc.), and she told him all about them and the various things they did together. But when he asked her about her camel, she answered, "I don't have a camel." She never played with baby dolls, only animals. She used to breastfeed a scary Star Wars fish toy with rows and rows of sharp teeth. OUCH! That is true dedication!

3. (If you have a weak stomach, you may want to skip this paragraph) Sarah has had the most impressive looking injury of any of my kids. You know how you're not supposed to run with pencils (or other sharp objects)? When she was 1 1/2, she took off running with a pencil and fell on it. It stabbed into her eye, but luckily, it was not very sharp, so it did not go through her eyelid. Her eyelid swelled completely closed and was the size of a golfball. She did this on Easter, so somewhere in our boxes of pictures (pre-digital camera days), we have pictures of her in her pretty Easter dress hunting for Easter eggs with a golf-ball shaped eyelid. For a long time, we couldn't go anywhere without anyone who saw her wanting to know what had happened to her. I had to constantly ask them to please not scare her with their horrified expressions. The eye doctor we saw scared us to death talking about muscle damage and nerve damage, but she doesn't have any lasting effects from the injury except for a small pencil lead scar in her right eyelid. We all love this gruesome picture (about a week after the injury when the color had gotten less black) - it gets really fun reactions out of people who haven't become hardened to it.

4. Sarah has the best laugh! You can't hear it without laughing yourself.

5. She is happy and easy-going. And she sets a great example for her younger sister, getting her to play with animals when she would otherwise want to play with evil Bratz dolls.

I love you, Sprph.

Halloween

Halloween is over, and we survived. Here's a rundown of the afternoon:

• 4 arguments with kids (3 with the same kid)
• 1 crying child
• 4 blackmail episodes out of which I got clean bedrooms, a clean kitchen and a clean bathroom ("You're not trick-or-treating until your room is clean!")
• several attempts at decent pictures with camera phone because the good cameras are both broken (pictures stink, but I'll post them anyway)
• two hours of FUN and lots of CANDY
• 2 freezing and crying kids
• hot chocolate for everyone
• threats over candy wrappers on the floor
• bed (FINALLY)

All in all, a productive evening.

This is what Sam the pirate looks like without his bottle ("Avast ye scurvy dog! Brin' me me bottle or I'll see ye t' Davy Jones!")

So our only happy Sam picture is with the bottle. ("Arr, me hearty. That be a fine bit o' grog.")

Sarah and Abby, the Cowgirl and Indian. This is the first time since she's had any say in the matter that Sarah hasn't been an animal for Halloween. She still has an animal, but at least she's finally willing to be human.

Matthew as a baby riding on a werewolf's back. He won a couple of prizes at school and at a party. And today at school, they had a "Shout Out" over the PA system to Matthew for having an awesome costume.

He looked especially funny when he was sleeping on a dancing werewolf.

Headless Anna - several people told her that it was the best costume they'd seen all night. She looked awesome! Matthew also heard several times that his was the best costume. Good job guys!

Correction to Pack Rat Post

In yesterday's post, I mentioned that Anna was 72 pounds. That was true a few months ago, but we weighed her tonight, and she has hit 89 pounds. Way to grow, Anna! In addition to the weight, she has gained 3 inches in height in less than a year and . . . (the following information was censored by Anna).

Conquering the Pack Rat

Last week, I walked by Anna's room, and had the shock of my life (nearly). Her room was such a mess that you could barely even walk in the door. There was stuff all over the floor, and her bed was piled high with boxes of more stuff. I'd post pictures, but, sadly, my camera is broken. When I asked her "WHAT THE . . . (insert appropriate word)," she said it had been like that for TWO WEEKS, and she'd been sleeping with her little sisters every night because she couldn't get into her bed. She'd been very careful to keep her door closed that entire time. And, stupid me, it never even occurred to me to open her door when I went upstairs.



I've seen her room a mess before, but never this bad. Apparently, she decided to organize and de-clutter her entire room by putting everything she owns into boxes and then sorting through them one at a time. Anyone who knows Anna or is familiar with the pack rat gene she inherited will appreciate the monumental task she had set for herself.


Needless to say, there was NO WAY that Anna could get that mess sorted through on her own, so I spent nearly an entire Saturday helping her. In a way, it's really fun to go through Anna's room because you never know what you'll find. Here's a short list of some things I've found stashed in her room in the past:

• the cut out oval from the counter top where the sink was installed just because it was too cool to throw away



• the sawed off bottoms of two Christmas trees because they smelled good and were special since they came from our Christmas trees



• a big slice of travertine tile to be used as a self-defense bludgeoning instrument



• several bricks (yes, bricks) that she carried around in her backpack just because she liked them (This was in 4th grade when Anna only weighed about 50 pounds, and she carted them back and forth to school for who knows how long.)



• several ice packs, also in her backpack, for keeping her drinks cold (not as heavy as bricks, but still up there)



• and my favorite, a can of garbanzo beans stashed under her bed for easy access so she wouldn't starve in case she had to abandon her room in a hurry, like in the event of a fire

Anna's 14 now, and I think she's learning to control her pack rat impulses because we didn't find anything all that interesting in her room. But we did manage to get rid of about 8 boxes of stuff (3 boxes of trash, 3 boxes of giveaway, and 2 boxes of too small clothes). I should probably check her backpack, though. Anna only weighs about 72 pounds, and it's seemed really heavy lately; who knows what she could be dragging around with her.

Symbiotic Relationship

Abby came home from kindergarten today talking about her new friend, Megan. Megan taught Abby how to do the monkey bars. In exchange, Abby taught Megan how to spell W-O-M-B-A-T.

Scary Letter from School

This post oughta tell me if my mom reads my blog or not. The kids brought this letter home from school this weekend that sent me into full mom panic mode:

Date: October 17th, 2007

Two frightening incidents occurred in our area recently that we wanted to make you aware of. In September, a female A... Elementary student was walking to school by herself. She was approached by a man she didn't know and was told to get in his car. Thankfully, she yelled and ran away, and the man drove off. This happened in view of the school, on a weekday morning between 8:30-9:00 am. A similar incident occurred during the second week of October on A... Blvd. Police were called immediately and a suspect was apprehended. Fortunately, in both cases, the children acted wisely and were not harmed. . .

That's my school! I live in a safe little community that dead-ends up against the mountains. And until we started having a lot of construction here, we didn't get much outside traffic. Barring never letting my kids out of the house again, what am I supposed to do with this?

Thank You Sam

Sam just cleaned the toilet for me. Thank you, Sam.

Then, after he brought the dripping toilet brush across the whole house and into the kitchen for me, I stripped his wet clothes off of him and left him in just his diaper while I washed the floor and ran his bath. While I did that, he took off his diaper and went back to the kitchen to pee all over the newly cleaned floor. Thank you again, Sam.

Family Road Trip

We just got home from an impromptu trip to Danville, CA. The kids had Thursday, Friday and Monday off of school, so we just jumped in the car and drove all night last Wednesday to get there. That's a long drive, especially with 5 bickering kids!

It gave me flashbacks of my last trip to Missouri which we are planning to repeat next summer. Last time I did that trip (it takes about 18 hours), I drove through the night, too. So the kids did great on the way there - Abby was 7 months old and did not cry a single time! The trip home, though, was a whole different story.

Before coming home, we (Martha, Liz and I) decided to drive to Nauvoo, Illinois, because the temple had just been dedicated. So we ended up spending about 3 days in the car by the time it was all over. The first two days, everyone did pretty well. But by the last day, Anna kicked it off by running non-stop circles around the breakfast table in the hotel we'd stayed in. Liz very sweetly asked me if she'd had her pill. Abby cried on and off the whole day, and for the last few hours of the drive, she puked apple juice. We were getting so close to the end of the trip that we didn't want to stop to nurse her, so we kept pacifying her with apple juice. Her stomach apparently was not happy with that solution. I got in back and held her for a while so she wouldn't choke herself lying on her back in her carseat. She puked all over me several times in about a 20 minute period. Then, when we finally got home, the doors were all locked and I didn't have a key. On top of that, I was supposed to meet with the bishop about 15 minutes after we got home, and I was soaked in apple juice puke.

We finally found an upstairs window that was cracked open. My neighbor climbed up a ladder and pulled the screen off, then had 9 year old Anna climb up in front of him to shimmy through the open window. She's always been a good climber. Hopefully, next summer's big trip will be a little less eventful.

Time Out Still Works for Teenagers

The day after Anna's 14th birthday, I had to break up an argument between her and Abby. I can't remember what it was about, but Anna was acting like a 5 year old. So I told her, "If you act like a five year old, you're going to get treated like a five year old. You're on time-out." She looked at me like I was crazy and asked, "Are you serious?" I assured her I was and made her go to her room for 14 minutes, one minute for each year of her actual age, not the age she was acting. Then I set the timer just like I would for Abby.



About 10 minutes later, a bunch of the 14-15 year old girls from our ward showed up at the door to welcome Anna into Mia Maids. Abby answered the door, and when she saw it was for Anna, she asked me if Anna could come off of time out now. When I told her yes, she yelled very loudly up the stairs, "Anna, you can come off of time out now!!!"



Of course, poor shy Anna was so embarrassed that she no longer wanted to come off of time out, hoping instead to just curl up and die in her room without ever having to face the girls from our ward. But, just in case she hadn't heard, Abby kept yelling that she could come off of time out, so she had to come down and face her peers after being mortally embarrassed by her little sister and mother.



Sorry Anna. I didn't mean to be the cause of your most embarrassing moment, but the laugh I got from it sure made it worth it!

Action Figures

Matthew has been pestering me lately and has gotten himself on my S-list. As punishment, I told him my next post would be about him.

Recently, Matthew and I were searching on the internet for halloween costume ideas for him. This search was very aggravating because he has to have an opinion about everything. Apparently, he has forgotten that my opinion is the only one that counts. He wants something gross and scarey, nothing cute like a fireman (sorry, Scott). We're welcoming any suggestions - he's 12.


While we were on the internet, we came across a Flash t-shirt, and it reminded me of one of my favorite Matthew memories. Many, many years ago (about 9 to be exact), Matthew used to like to raid his aunt Carol's toy bins and play with all of the action figures. He came across a red man with a lightning bolt on his chest and asked me what his name is. At that particular moment, I couldn't remember, so I asked Matthew, "What do you want his name to be?" He answered, "I think his name is SUPERGLUE." For a very long time, much to the whole family's delight and continual amusement, Matthew's favorite action figure was Superglue. Eventually, I got Carol to just give Superglue to us, and he now lives in Matthew's special bin. I think he even gets to see daylight sometimes when Matthew is feeling lonely, though I'm sure he'll vehemently deny it.




Matthew's other favorite action figures were Batman and Robin. When I had to have my gall bladder removed, I ended up in the hospital for a week (it was supposed to be out-patient). When Matthew came to visit, he brought Robin with him and left him for me to play with. What a sweety, huh? Robin now keeps Superglue company in the special bin.