The Carr Ride

2017 in a Poorly Written Nutshell

2018-01-09T22:08:00.003-07:00

I have tried to write a lot lately, especially a recap of the year. I've struggled. I know that I am in sort of a "mostly functioning depression" and probably have been for like the last year or so, but it's hard to write. The year was ok. The move was hard and it felt like the world was burning down a couple of times. But in the grand scheme of things, my life is lovely and I do know that. I'm just having a hard time recapping the year. It's actually hard to look over all of the highlights of the year and see all of the wonderful moments and be like "dang it, why am I sad so much? I am the worst." One of the worst parts about being depressed is that at least in my case, I'm pretty aware that I am and I don't want to be, so I get angry at myself for not being stronger. And whenever I mention that I've been depressed, people assume that I'm sad all of the time. I'm not. I play with my kids, I laugh with Jeff. With me, it just seeps in quietly under my door. Also, its winter, so my personal percentage of sadness goes up.

But I wanted to write something because I use social media as a journal and this blog is the only social media that I can actually give any real context to. But since I'm feeling pretty blahsy, I just organized some pictures off of Google Plus and copied them here. Huzzah! Year recapped. I also thought I'd mention a little more about two moments in 2017 that became sort of my themes of the year. I usually pick a line or lyric or a thought at the beginning of the year and just think about it throughout the rest of the year. Usually it's a line from the LDS children song "I'm Trying to Be Like Jesus", because that's the best religious song ever. This year, however, I forgot. Luckily (?), I had two different thoughts that kept repeating in my mind this year that I guess could be called theme-ish.

When we went to Florida in February, I saw two ladies in the parking lot of our hotel filming a livestream of their morning. For some reason, what one of the ladies said stayed with me all year. "First of all, I'd like to thank God and all his blessings for letting me go and see something different." I have no clue why, but that sentence ran through my head all year long. Every time I saw something beautiful or even something from a different perspective, I thought that sentence. It seems like that woman didn't have the chance to go and see something different very often and I just want to have even a little bit of the enthusiasm for life that she had in a parking lot in Orlando.

The second thing that stuck in my head most of the year happened in May. The day before Jeff's birthday, I got a call from my mom that my sister-in-law Katelin had given birth to the twins she and my brother were expecting. My family is pretty small and Tim and Katelin and I are close, so I knew that she had just barely had her 20 week ultrasound. I kept crying as I was racking my brain thinking of how many weeks ago that ultrasound was and I got even more upset when I realized that the babies would only be about 23 weeks along, so their odds weren't good. They were actually super dire -- doctors gave them each a 15% chance of living. I flew out to Utah to be with my brother because I was sure that at least one of them was going to pass away in the next few days. Absolutely positive. The week that I was with them was pretty touch-and-go, and that during that week I kept thinking another line that ended up being something that I thought about a TON the rest of the year. And it's actually kind of embarrassing. It comes from Toy Story 3, one of Ben's 3 favorite movies. The toys are worried about their future and Rex freaks out and asks, "Should we be hysterical?!?" Potato Head answers "Yes", and Slinky answers "No", and Buzz says "Maybe. But not right now."

It's kind of sad how well I know Toy Story, but I thought of that line constantly for the twins' first week and pretty frequently for the rest of the year. Every time I felt overwhelmed by loneliness or sadness about the move and every time I felt anxious about meeting new people. I don't know, but to me it's a mantra of "Hey, it's ok to be freaking out, but try to hold it together for a second and get something done." I feel like that's how 2017 was for me. I was freaking out during a lot of it, but I tried to hold it together and get some stuff done.

And I guess since this is sort of like a holiday newsletter (y'know, because all of those start off with depression and end with Toy Story), I should do a little bit on how my family is all doing. Jeff is loving life in Idaho and at the museum. He has been enjoying public relations and also learning more about donor relations and networking in Eastern Idaho. We recently watched The West Wing, and it seemed to fill all of his government-service voids.

Adam is doing so well in school. I am so proud of how well-rounded and pleasant he is (except to Avery). He has done very well with the move. He was delighted by the Lego table he got for Christmas and also by the Nerf gun. He has only shot one person with it (MEEEEE) and I think that's definitely newsletter-worthy.

Avery has made some dear friends in school. Her kindergarten experience is basically what we feared it would be, and her teacher suggested we move her to first grade. Avery is really opposed to that idea, so we are trying to figure out ways for the school to accommodate her. Despite sounding like a little bragging blurb on this newsletter, it has actually been a big source of worry. Avery is lovely, though. We so enjoy watching her grow and learn and feel privileged to be her parents.

Ben continues to be a menace, but he's my menace, so I won't hear a word against him. If you ask him how he's doing, he'll tell you "I two" which is a pretty accurate description of how he is doing most of the time. Ben loves anything with sugar, Toy Story, and Taylor Swift's "Look What You Made Me Do", and the majority of my day is spent trying to limit those things.

So on to the recap!

JANUARY

Ben threw up all over himself on our first of 3 flights and I forgot to pack extra clothes. Luckily, Jeff always had an extra shirt in his carry-on.

Ben began getting better at feeding himself, but this is pretty similar to how and what he still eats, a year later.

A good measure of how much of a winter funk I am in is how much soup I make.

FEBRUARY

In Februrary, Steve and Cindy took us to Florida. It was such a special memory for the kids.

At the Hirshhorn, the weirdest museum on the mall.

The National Building Museum.

My favorite character to draw, because he is super easy and sassy.

It was in the 70s in February, so we got yogurt.

We redid our cabinets.

MARCH

Visited the botanical gardens with our dear friends on my birthday.

This chocolate pinata was everything I hoped it'd be.

These belonged to Jeff's grandpa, who passed away on my birthday. A good man and fellow Aggie.

We attended an environmental film festival with Jeff's uncle, who screened a film about the national park he works at. It was fancy. I talked to a senator for like 30 mins.

Adam got a super strong virus. He was out for about a week with a high fever, reaching 105.

Cherry Blossom Festival

Paddle boats during the festival. Make sure you have tickets in advance. Those lines were pretty rough.

I just love this so much.

APRIL

Avery turned 5!

We got our nails done.

I threw the first party that I've ever really done and the stress was enough for me to not want to do that again... ever.

Visiting the bluebells in Bull Run.

We put our house for sale and it sold before it went on the market.

Chesapeake Bay with our friends, which means mostly mine and Avery's friends and Adam tagging along.

My favorite tree.

Easter. Also, my favorite picture of the year

The two youngest and I went to the Kusama exhibit. We waited in line for a very long time, but we had to be out of the house for four hours during our home inspection.

It was wonderful.

pink snow

Our last "bring your child to work day"

MAY

Last trip to Shenandoah National Park, one of my favorite places in the world

First tooth lost

9th anniversary dinner at Olive Garden. We had a really busy May.

New York trip with my VA friends. That was the best girls' trip ever.

Jeff's birthday

Jackson, 1 lb 7 oz

Brooklynn, 1 lb 9 oz

Since I flew out to be with my brother and SIL after the babies were born, I missed Adam's birthday and Mother's Day. But I got to spend some extra time with my baby brother.

Hanging out with Gracie, who is a weird dog, but who wormed her way into my affections, for sure.

This make-up box really messed with me for a good 5 minutes. But turns out its a nose, instead something that is obscene, but I'm not even sure what.

Swimming at the neighborhood pool

JUNE

Benny turned 2!

Our dear friends Davis and Jenna throw the most amazing Christmas parties and knowing that I am a super fan of their parties, they threw a Polish Christmas goodbye party and my heart aches thinking about it.

Last day of 1st grade.

Preschool graduation

The sign on our moving truck was enjoyable.

Last picture in Ashburn

The road trip with just Jeff was wonderful.

Badlands National Park was a favorite.

I love the Tetons.

Bunking in Steve and Cindy's basement

The benches in IF are fun.

Getting ready to go to a museum opening.

JULY

Brookie

First time touching Jackson.

Jeff and some of his best friends spent a weekend in Sun Valley and we went hiking.

Adam and I have enjoyed biking this summer.

Camp Gimlet

Went to a party at Ernest Hemingway's house. Asked a docent which room he died in. Got judged a little for asking.

Jeff's grandma turned 95

Going swimming at our new pool.

One of the best parts about living closer

summer poetry

Jackson

Brooklynn and Tim's hand

Cowabunga Bay

Playing with Uncle James

Closed on our house

Refinished our bedroom set, nearly went insane

Worth it.

AUGUST

Ben runs feral through the yard

I like this robot.

Nursery hooky

Watching the eclipse.

It was wonderful

2nd grade!

Kindergarten

First day

SEPTEMBER

Labor Day hike in the Sawtooths. Ben took off all of his clothes.

State Fair

Riding the Ferris wheel

Reading in the backyard

One of our many walks around the greenbelt.

Apparently it's famous.

My mom and Avery

John came up to visit us in IF!

The weather obviously started turning at this point. All of my photos started being of soup.

Adam is over it

Hiking with Adam in Palisades.

OCTOBER

Date night. We actually have babysitters now.

Our neighborhood has a park and we spent a lot of time there when it was warmer

Trip to Jackson

I just love the Tetons

Hiking to Taggart Lake

The kids had a great time.

Steve and Cindy's cabin

Brookie made it home!

Avery just loves her.

We have like 7 mature deciduous trees in our yard and we had a mind-blowing amount of leaves this fall. Jeff raked for hours and hours.

I love it when they'll let me just walk with no purpose.

Jackson made it home!

I came and stayed with them for a few days and that mostly meant that I got to hang out with Jackson during Brooklynn's appointments.

While I was gone, the kids won a fish at a church party. Feelings were had.

Halloween. Ben got into it later.

NOVEMBER

First time voting in Idaho. The mayoral race got surprisingly heated.

We get some beautiful sky in the west.

I just like this picture of Jeff's cousin looking like a creeper

We were gifted a piano.

Another really impromptu trip to Jackson. Adam got to be a pilot.

I still love the Tetons. I've decided to learn how to snowshoe.

We got stuck behind this herd of bison for a really long time. Pictures don't do it justice.

Avery was a pilot too.

Sun Valley was so warm at Thanksgiving that I got to bike.

Jeff's family

DECEMBER

Ben picked out a Woody ornament and then carried it around all season

We ate a lot of chocolate oranges this year

Baby heaven

Visiting Santa at the musuem

We visited a local glassblower because that's what Avery wants to be when she grows up.

I saw this stocking and fell in love

Ben is obsessed with apples and scribbles

Twins are hard, man

The babies' first Christmas!

My favorite tree in the world

A little winter walk

I Walk

2017-10-20T21:52:00.000-06:00

I walk a lot in Idaho.

I walk in the mornings after the older kids get on the bus and before Jeff goes to work. I walk in the afternoon after Avery comes home from school. We walk around downtown or the mall so that Ben will take a nap in the stroller. And I try to take a walk right after dinner.

On the last walk, I think.

I try not to think about what is better or worse. I mostly think about what is different. I think that in Virginia, Jeff wouldn't necessarily be home for dinner. I wouldn't be able to walk by myself. I think about the trails in Virginia, how wooded and lovely they were. In Idaho, our house backs up to a large park with trails. It's manicured and different. It feels very safe and wholesome. I keep finding dogs that I think are lost, but it turns out that even dogs feel safe walking around alone here.

Sometimes, I walk further. I leave our subdivision and cross into the subdivision that Jeff grew up in. I walk past his old home on the corner and look at the basketball hoop that he played with as a child. I feel sometimes like I have been dropped into Jeff's life. It's a strange thing to say and a strange feeling to have when you've been married for 10 years, but I often feel like everyone else in my family has these roots in this city and I am an outlier. I felt that when I told my kids' teachers that, no, their father attended a nearby school, but their grandfather actually attended this elementary school. "Are you one of the Carr Carrs?" a cashier asked me as she looked at my credit card. I stared maybe a second too long before answering that I was. I can't imagine someone reading my credit card in Virginia and knowing something so personal about me. The cashier in Idaho told me that she sometimes went over to Jeff's grandparents house and played. "It was out in the country back then," she informed me. It isn't now. It is about 3 minutes from our house. I want to tell her that the house is the same. She played on the same orange carpet that my kids sat on and played Pit last week with their 95-year-old great-grandmother.

On my afternoon walk, I almost always stop by and see Jeff's sister. She works downtown in a relaxed office and I come by and borrow her library card a few times a week. I technically have a library card, but even though we've verified our residence, we can only check out two books at a time until we get Idaho driver licenses. I'm not ready for that, so I borrow Amy's card and walk the block to the library. I like the library here. It's bigger than our local one in Virginia, but the one in Virginia was part of a county system so we had access to more books. But the Idaho Falls library serves us just fine. They have lots of large ramps and a koi pond. If he's awake, Ben likes try to get in the ponds and to run up the ramps and yell "I'M RUNNING!" I try to go when he's asleep. Avery has made friends with one of the librarians. They spent a half hour talking about rare fruits and vegtables. It was kind of a boring half hour for me.

That being said, my afternoon walks are probably my favorite. I walk to a bakery and order kolache. I still don't know if I'm saying it right. I ask the owner of the bakery and she always says I'm not, but I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. I like the owner of the bakery. She was wearing a shirt with the Deathly Hallows on it and she told me that people keep asking her if she's in the Illuminati.I like that I have started to develop relationships with the people I see downtown every day. The employees at the bagel shop we like remember Avery's order as soon as we enter the door. That is different.

Sometimes on our afternoon walks, we eat lunch with Jeff. This is very different from Virginia. I visited Jeff's work, but only very rarely. Children can go anytime, but adults need passes. I never saw Jeff's desk -- I didn't realize until he quit and brought stuff home from his office that it was covered with Idaho paraphernalia. I guess people weren't completely surprised that he wanted to move back. Anyways, in Idaho, we just stop by his work whenever. I don't like to because the kids will want to stay and play and also because the front desk is always staffed with volunteers that don't always know Jeff by name yet. Some of them are kind of mean. I don't like telling them that I get to go into the museum for free.

My morning walks are cold. I usually walk with my friends Lisa and Krystal. Lisa is the primary president and Krystal is my neighbor. She has a son Adam's age who is in his class. He came over to play a few days ago and I could just cry because I've never had the experience of a kid riding their bike over to ask my kid to play before. We walk around the park and Krystal's dog only seems to like to poop in the road. I point it out almost every time and then I really contemplate about how weird it is that I mentally keep track of where the dog poops and it's probably even weirder that I mention it. Despite this little weird tidbit, I love my morning walks.

My evening walks are cold, too, but the weather hasn't been awful here. People speak in apopleptic terms about the winter, so I know that it'll be hard. One thing I like about Idaho Falls is that even when its cold or windy, the sun is usually out. There is possibly a higher average of overcast days in Virginia, I think. I do think that is the only way that Idaho beats Virginia, weather-wise. But I'm trying to only notice the differences, not grade them.

But I'm failing.

On my evening walks, I miss Virginia. And I get so mad at myself. I walk past huge houses with nice lawns and I find myself missing the rows of townhomes filled with some beautiful tiny lawns and some scraggly tiny lawns that are surely getting threatening letters from the HOA. I think about my neighbors. I see my neighbors in Idaho just as much as I did in Virginia. There are a lot of people in Ashburn who only seem to sleep in their homes. And there are a lot of people in Ashburn who I would see when I got up with babies in the middle of the night, getting up to start their commutes. In Idaho, people seem to be at home more. Our elderly neighbors work on their lawn. They wave when I walk by.

On my evening walks, I am filled with wishes and wants. I miss the humid air at night. I wish I was able to visit the Smithsonian again. I wonder when I'll see fireflies again. I think about people I love. I wish I could tell them that I miss them. I wish our relationships weren't only now likes on Instagram and short text messages. I want to let them know that they mean more to me than that. I've moved more than most people I know. I wish I knew why this move is so hard. I want it to not be hard any more.

"Do you know what you wish? Are you certain what you wish is what you want?" I sing this line from Into The Woods in my head as I walk every night. It is so easy to wish to be back in Virginia. But am I certain that wish is what I really want? Is it what's best for me? For my family? I don't know anymore.

Do you know what you wish? Step. Are you certain what you wish is what you want? Step.

I let the line crescendo in my head and I start to feel this physical ache that I feel when I am sad but I can't cry. I refuse to cry. How will I ever find my home here if I cry about the home I left every day? And then I turn, back to the family that loves me, back to the beautiful home that keeps them warm, back to the responsibilities that wait. The ache lessens as I get closer. The song gets softer.

I'll walk again tomorrow.

PS- There are 7 trees at our new house and I love them all.

Moving On

2017-04-23T20:16:00.000-06:00

We are moving to Idaho and I don't really want to talk about it. "You're moving??" people ask. They're shocked because it really feels like it came out of nowhere. It actually didn't. Jeff told me that he wanted to live in Idaho Falls again someday on our second date and I was like, "ok, handsome man, whatever you say." But I don't want to talk about moving for two reasons. I don't want to be moving and I don't want to move. I don't want to be moving because it always frames all interactions in a different light. You start thinking things like, "is this the last time I will visit this place?" or "is this the last time I will ever see this person?" I don't want to be moving because I feel like I've let down the people who are upset and I don't want to be moving because I also inexplicably feel hurt when people aren't upset, even though I don't want them to be upset. I guess I want to mean something to people, but I guess I don't want to mean too much.

And I don't want to move, or at least, I am conflicted about the move. Anyone who has spoken to me about it knows that. My attitude about it seems even more ambivalent when I discuss this in person, so I thought I better write it down because in general I make more sense written down. I am worried about the weather, I am nervous about the schools, I am worried that the culture will be too different. We are taking a slight pay cut. Jeff's job now is great -- a dream job, really. I fell in love with Virginia. I have friends I love. I love our townhouse. I love exploring the area. The schools are excellent. I like the diversity. My kids are happy here. I love our ward. I love the beautiful trees. I even don't mind the humidity.

I love it here. I can't even write that sentence without tearing up. How am I ever going to adequately explain our decision?

I'll start with Jeff.

Jeff Carr loves Idaho. Especially Idaho Falls. Everyday he reads his hometown paper, scours blogs for word on new developments, reads about decisions that local legislators have made. He tells me with pure happiness about new plans for parking structures downtown. He has such a pure, guileless love for his hometown and he has such a strong desire to serve in its community. I love Virginia, but I've never felt anything close to the love that he feels for Idaho Falls. And how can I begrudge him that? I love how much he cares about it. His feelings about Idaho highlight what I think are some of the very best parts of him -- his loyalty, his hard work, and his desire to good in the world.

I guess I'll continue on with our marriage. I mean, not that it is really the internet's business, but just to work through my thoughts.

I feel really fortunate in our marriage. Jeff is absolutely everything I ever hoped for in a spouse. He is encouraging and kind. We challenge each other intellectually. We have really similar senses of humor. He comes and waves to me every night when he brushes his teeth and laughs uproariously at my Randy Newman impression. He works so hard, but still comes home and does more than his share of the housework and child rearing. And not only adding in the factor that every time I see his face in a crowd I think, "who is that extremely handsome man?", we just fit well together. We agree on almost everything. I have issues I care about more, he has issues he cares about more, but we usually agree on just about everything.

This is the one thing we haven't agreed on.

When we moved here and Jeff got this amazing job, he told everyone that we were only planning on being in DC for about 5 years and then we'd like to go back West. And yes, I love the West. I love my family. I've always dreamt of raising my kids to be close to their grandparents. We see them now about twice a year, in visits so stressful and harried that I tried to cancel it last year. And I could go on and on about stereotypes about East vs. West, but I think I've come to the conclusion that all versions of these stereotypes are true (and not true) in different communities across two huge regions of our country. But anyway, the point of this paragraph is to say that Jeff has always planned on leaving and planting roots somewhere closer to our families, and I agreed. I did. There are so many benefits and blessings that would come from it. But Jeff said 5 years and I said we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I was always hoping that he'd change his mind and we'd maybe stay 10 years.

He didn't change his mind. Every time we'd go back home, I'd be so stressed and eager to return to Virginia, but Jeff would always be so relaxed and happy. I'd remind him that these feelings were probably because he was on vacation, and he'd agree, but he'd just agonize over returning home. Returning home to me meant coming back to my lovely townhome with natural light and having playdates, but to Jeff it meant waking up at 6 and commuting almost an hour each way to a job that he enjoyed, but that can be stressful. And I have to tread lightly here, 1) because Jeff's job is a blessing and I never want to downplay that and 2) because he hasn't resigned yet (though his boss knows his intention), but Jeff didn't love the idea of his future there. He was reaching the point in his career where he'd kind of have to decide what to do next. His career track is actually pretty limited and specific -- his choices boil down basically to: work on something that he's not passionate about and spend a lot of time away from home and earn more money; or remain as is, but with a lower chance of more income.

And the DC area is a hard place to raise a family of 3 kids on one income. It's hard to raise a family of 3 kids on two incomes, honestly. I've always felt like we could make it work if our hearts were in it. I could budget better, pick up something that would bring in a little extra income. We could maybe live abroad again. Jeff could take a career path that he's not excited about. We could make it work, but it would be hard. We have never had the career options to allow us to live here super comfortably. But I do think we could have made it work.

But.

But I've got this husband. This absolutely wonderful human being. This incredible father. This loving and loyal husband. And his heart's not in it.

And I realized that I need to be more like him.

Jeff has a job that allows him to travel the world, meet important people. And I've always thought that was really amazing and I've been so proud of him. But I've started to feel like maybe I have placed too much meaning in his job. For me. As crazy as it sounds, when Jeff did cool things and met important people, a part of me felt like I was doing those things. So when Jeff comes and tells me that he'd like to go back west so that he could spend more time with me and the kids, be close to our families and do work in a community that he feels connected to, I really shouldn't balk, right? (I should clarify that yes, Jeff has been offered a great job, but I don't want to publicize it online until after he has given his current job notice. It is in the non-profit sector and he is super excited.) If your husband comes to you with a solution that means you'll be able to eventually be more financially stable, grow closer as a family and develop strong bonds with your extended family, it's really a pretty ideal situation, right?

I wish I could turn off that voice that tells me how safe and boring moving to Idaho is. I've really enjoyed being in an unfamiliar region of the country. I've loved living in the shadow of a large city. I truly think that I will miss that desperately. But I also have to acknowledge the small truth inside of me that knows that part of me doesn't want to move to Idaho because I like being different. Only slightly different, but different. Different from what is anyone's guess, but I've always felt that -- never a desire to rebel, but to be just a little memorable. I also have been acknowledging in my heart that this is my own vanity that I'm dealing with and not necessarily what is best for my family. (The children, for the record, are very excited for the move.)

And there are so many darn positives, there really are. Jeff's commute will probably be 10 minutes at the very most. The cost of living difference is insane. Housing costs about 75% less, and yet the city is growing at an impressive and admirable rate. Jeff has been offered a generous salary, with flexibility and some good benefits. He feels like he will be doing work that is good in a noticeable way (he often feels like a small cog in a big machine in his current job). We will live near his parents and I know this is a hard thing to articulate, but I feel like my kids just blossom when they are surrounded by a loving and supportive family. We hope to be able to still travel frequently. We hope to be able to actually go on dates and strengthen our marriage. We will live 3 hours from my family and some of my dearest friends. I will be able to spend a significant amount more time with them. My mom and I are already scheming up days where we meet up in Logan. My eldest brother and his wife are about to have twins and my heart feels so happy that I'll be able to have a more consistent relationship with them. My youngest brother, John, is severely disabled and lives in a group home and as I watch my parents grow older, I want to be able to reestablish a strong relationship with him. We are 14 months apart and one of the only things I've always been completely certain about is that I was put on this earth to love John. I want all of these things. I want that lifestyle.

I wish it wasn't complicated. The logical part of my brain can see all of the good things. I wish that I could turn off the part of me that hurts so much. I feel so sad about moving and then I feel so guilty for feeling so sad about a move that I agreed to. I keep crying when I look out and see my cherry tree. I love my cherry tree. We had one in Reston and when we bought our house here and I saw a Kwanzan Cherry in the front yard, it felt like a good omen. I love the tree so much. Every year it seems impossible that the flowers will come, but every year they are even more lovely. I cried because I missed them last year while we were in Bosnia.

I hoped that maybe I could grow one in Idaho, but I can't. I looked all over the internet to see if there was any evidence that I possibly could make one live there, but it isn't hardy enough for the winters. Maybe that's what's right. Maybe I need to find new things to love. A clean break. New blossoms to cry over.

But maybe the memory of my cherry tree shouldn't be something that causes me pain. I was reading about the Kwanzan Cherry while I was researching it and the forest service guide really goes over what a pain it is. It doesn't thrive super well in a lot of soil, it has a lot of pest problems and it only lives around 15 years under perfect conditions. The last line of the description made me pause because it didn't sound like language you'd expect from a forest guide: "But the tree is a joy during this short period and should be planted."

I knew that we wouldn't be here forever, but the anxiety and sadness that I have felt over leaving has truly been overwhelming. I almost wish that I didn't love it here. I almost wish that I didn't love people here. It would be easier that way.

I know I am probably in a bad mental state because I keep reading the cherry guide and finding deep meaning, but I can't help thinking that the forest service has it right. The period of time that I have spent here has been a joy and I think that's worth more than the fact that the time was relatively brief.

I'm trying to have a better attitude. Maybe Virginia is the best place in the world, filled with the best people in the world and that's why I'm so upset. But there's a tiny voice inside me that wonders if maybe its not just a reflection on what I'm leaving, but on me. Maybe I have loved it so much because I have been willing to love it. I won't be able to replace it, but hopefully I will be able to bring some of that love and connection that I've been able to feel for Virginia with me.

And plant it somewhere new.

A Day in the Life

2016-11-16T20:28:00.000-07:00

I woke up today and I just needed to write, but I couldn't really think of a great theme to write about. The problem with me and writing is if I don't feel like I'm being super witty or poignant, I just can't do it. I am not great at keeping a journal because I really struggle with writing about mundane things. I find it kind of funny that I have a really high standard for myself when it comes to writing, but I give myself a free pass on basically everything else I do. Anyway, the point was just to write because it makes me happy and not because it would be good to read, so I challenged myself today to just write about my day. I knew that my day would probably not be super exciting because most of them aren't. But it was gratifying, in a way, to catalogue all of the things that I did because it was a good reminder that I actually do a lot, even on days when it kind of feels like I didn't. As a writer, it was good practice to write in a way that I usually am uncomfortable with, but I would guess it wouldn't be super fun to read. Spoiler alert-diaper changes.

6:15 I wake up as Jeff is getting dressed. Jeff gets up at 6:00, but I never really hear him till after he eats breakfast. He is so careful to be so sneaky. My first thought is how tired I am. I haven't been sleeping well since the election. It has been extra acrimonious and I've been upset, but that is actually something that happens to me every election cycle. 2012 was also super rough on me. I stayed up late reading about Trump's transition team last night. I had heard this before, but I was reminded that Trump's son-in-law's dad was prosecuted by Chris Christie when he was NJ's AG and that there have been a lot of tensions there. Last night I thought that almost sounded like a novel- having to work with the man who sent your dad to prison because your father-in-law randomly decided to be president and then trying (supposedly) to bring him down. Doesn't that sound like a book? Someone will write it someday. Not me, but I'd like credit if anyone who reads this runs with the idea.

6:30 I say a prayer and then lay in bed, wondering why I am so tired and then I realize that Adam is laying next to me because he "had a bad dream." I put that in quotes because whenever he tells us what his bad dreams are, it's usually stuff like, "My shoe fell of when I was on the bus." or "I dreamt that this lady was mean in the store." Stuff like that. I feel like he's probably pretty untroubled, but he keeps coming to our bed. I also remember that Ben had been up because he had a wet diaper that leaked, but that Jeff took care of him and changed his crib sheet. Adam wakes up and Jeff goes. I always feel this moment of complete despondence when Jeff goes because life is just so much better when he's home. Adam woke up early and I still am not sure that I want to be up early, so I tell him he can watch one show. I read a few chapters of a 1980's romance novel. It sounds more scandalous than it actually is. It's probably cleaner than most mainstream lit these days, but the main reason I like to read it is because the author spent a really long time describing the heroine's clothes. "She looked like an enchanting ingenue, in her high-waisted cherry wool slacks, along with a a loose red blouse with gold bangles sewn into the sleeves. She completed her look with a jaunty yellow scarf and wind-blown hair." OK, that was a recreation, but a pretty accurate one. I know this sounds silly, but it feels like a direct link into the past and I enjoy reading the author's take on contemporary romance more than I expected. It's almost like anthropology and escapism at the same time.

7:00 I feed Adam. This takes up an incredible amount of my energy every day, but alas, he remains alive. I pack his lunch, help direct him to getting dressed and brushing his teeth and send him to the bus stop. I'm one of the only parents who sends their kid alone, but I'm also apparently one of the only parents who looks like a hobo in the morning.

7:30 I watch Adam get on the bus from our window and I hear Ben playing on the monitor. I come upstairs to get him and run into Avery on the stairs. She makes me say hello to Bear, as she does every single morning since she could talk. I open the door to grab Ben and find that he is covered in poop and it's on his sheets and pillow. It was truly gnarly, and I've seen things in my day. I tell Avery to go downstairs and watch one TV show because I had to disinfect everything. I throw his linens in the washing machine.

8:00 I give Ben a bath, which is really hard at this age, because he wants to stand up and he wants to drink the water and he wants to be super mad when I actually, you know, wash him.

8:20 I feed Ben and Avery breakfast. I notice that Ben is sleepy and I realize that he's probably sick. He confirms this by needing to be changed again. I feel bad for him because he has no clean bedding at all, so he has to stay up. I turn on the TV again (the third time today, eeshk) and pray that Ben will be entranced so that I can eat breakfast.

8:45 I eat breakfast and read the news. I check the news throughout the day, but I like to sit down and read something in-depth at breakfast. Today it was a human interest article in the NYT about how hard Thanksgiving is this year for people because basically everyone hates each other. It was sad. I get Ben and Avery dressed.

9:00 I've been wanting to give Avery a reading level assessment for a while because I've just been kind of curious where she stands. I have a hard time talking about it for some reason, but I realized that Avery is probably some level of intellectually gifted a few weeks ago after she told us about the gluteus maximus being the largest muscle in the body and showed us the anatomy book that she read it in. I don't like to talk about it because I worry that it sounds like I'm bragging or something and I know that many kids are bright in so many ways and I worry that people think that its just my love for her that causes me to think that. I think it is so strange because she seems like a normal 4 year old and I always pictured someone that is gifted just seeming like a little adult. But I kind of had a wake-up moment a few weeks ago because she's 4 and she's reading about anatomy and I never taught her to read at all and that's just not the norm. Anyway, I felt slightly validated because I've been having her evaluated to see if she qualifies for speech therapy (both she and Adam had articulation issues that basically just make them sound adorable) and the development specialists screened her for a lot of things and told me they thought she was gifted. I wanted to see exactly what she knows so that I could help her find things that challenge her if she needs that.

9:30 Printed out and did two different assessments, both said that she was reading at an end of 4th grade or beginning of 5th grade reading level. Avery requests that we print out and color pictures of flowers. She colors for literally 2 minutes and then decides to play in the basement with Ben and I. We play her favorite game, "Baby Daycare." It's pretty self-explanatory.

9:45 Ben needs to be changed again. Avery doesn't want me to take him because he is a big part of her daycare. I encourage that she make little beds for her charges and I take the clean sheets out of the dryer.

10:00 I put Ben down, take out some trash and mildly clean out the fridge. Avery comes up and decides to cut out some paper pillows and blankets for the baby daycare. This ends up distracting her for about an hour.

10:15 I take shower and do my makeup even though I know I probably won't really get out today. It really helps with my mood. I almost always wear makeup and I know that there are connotations that come with that, but I actually just really like applying makeup. It's one of my favorite parts of the day.

11:00 I begin getting Avery ready for preschool, she is resistant. Avery loves school, but Avery is very frequently opposed to being told to do anything. I feed her a snack and brush her hair, but we seem to be fighting a lot. She hides.

11:40 Avery is showing increased resistance, I go and wake up Ben so that we aren't late.

11:50 Guess what, we're late. Ben needed to be changed again.

12:00 I sometimes wonder if I am not naturally inclined for being a stay at home mom because frankly, I get really sad if we stay at home all day. I feel restless if I don't leave the house, so I decide to drive around and get Wendy's. Ben and I sing in the car and the leaves are pretty.

12:30 We come home, I eat my chicken sandwich and try to feed Ben some healthier food, but he's not really into it. He needs to be changed again. This poop thing is getting ridiculous, poor thing. He is in really good spirits though and we play with blocks and read some books.

1:30 Ben suddenly gets really tired again and I decide that I need to put him down. Avery's preschool schedule has been so hard because Ben is almost always sleeping when I need to take her or pick her up. Luckily, she has several dear friends in her class and I ask my friend Bethanie if she'll take Avery till Ben wakes up. She lives close to the preschool and her daughter is in the class and also one of Avery's best friends. She agrees and I feel guilty.

1:40-2:45 I realize that my guilt might have been augmented by being super tired because I go upstairs to straighten up and I accidentally fall on my bed and sleep for an hour.

3:00 Adam comes home and I feed him a snack. He watches a TV show and builds with Legos. I clean up a little, eat a snack too, text a little and read another chapter of my 80's romance. Seems like the FBI agent seems also have a thing for the heroine. She apparently has eyes that look like crystals. Personally, I'm not sure why authors like to use gems to describe eyes so much.

4:00 Ben wakes up with another blowout. I clean him up.

4:30 We pick up Avery. I have to almost physically drag her away. The kids immediately start fighting because Adam hit Avery with a pez dispenser and she started screaming bloody murder and I almost drove off the road. I tell them that they are to play in their rooms when we get home.

5:00 I try to figure out something for dinner, but I used up a lot of ingredients yesterday when I made a lemon-ginger soup that turned out too sweet. We can either have quesadilas and grapes or pizza. I decide to order pizza and I ask Jeff to pick it up on his way home. It works out because he is almost there. Adam and Avery emerge from their rooms, less angry.

5:15 Ben keeps calling people on FaceTime, which is becoming an ever-growing problem. We eventually decide to actually talk to Grandma and Grandpa Carr for a few minutes. They are on vacation and man, I'd like one of those. Jeff brings the pizza home. Jeff hurt his ankle and he's not even sure how and so I worry that he has some rare disease. That's just where my mind likes to go to- the super depressing and implausible.

5:30 I eat fast and then Ben needs to be changed, again. I ask Jeff to put him in the tub. Poor Ben seems to be really uncomfortable. I empty all of the trash cans around the house because tomorrow is garbage day and Ben will play with unattended trash. Adam and Avery sit at the table and drink root beer as a special treat for finishing their pizza. That doesn't make a lot of sense, but just go with it. Avery needs to use the bathroom, but moves too slowly and has an accident. I put the load of her accident clothes in the laundry.

5:45 Ben is screaming because he's developing a terrible diaper rash and the tub was a bad decision. I put lotion around him and let him run around naked some more. He bonks his head, as he does basically every other day. I decide to boil their toothbrushes and disinfect their bathroom some more because I can't take any more pooping and I will find these germs and conquer them.

6:00 We all end up playing in the boys’ room and shoot each other with these barn animals that spit balls. I'm sure there is a better way to put that. Avery keeps trying to erase Adam's whiteboard calender and she keeps getting rebuked because he has been pretty meticulous about keeping it up to date. He has all of the dates of Saturdays listed with a heart because his dad is home on those days. He is such a good kid.

6:15 Jeff reads to the older kids and I try to put Ben down, but fail. I give him a bottle and he blows out again and cries so hard when I change him. It was an exceptional day of diaper changes. Adam and Jeff take turns reading about the Revolutionary War and Avery goes and brushes some dolls' hair because she has a weird thing against George Washington.

7:00 We put the kids down. The older two will stay up and read for a while, but I generally feel like we all do better if they go to bed early. Especially me. I tell Jeff that I'd really like to blog about my day because I just need to write something and he sits across from me while I blog. It takes about two minutes before I ask him to leave and let me blog in peace. I think he's reading Chess for Dummies. I don't really get the appeal of chess, so maybe I should read the book too. Or maybe I'll just read 1980 romance novels from the library because I guess I do want to see if he ever clears his name and can come back from South America or whatever. Also, the clothes.

This is the only picture I took today. Avery made me carry her paper pillows and blankets downstairs in the "moving bucket" she made.

Ben and I in healthier times (ok, yesterday.)

This was from a few days ago. We have had an amazingly lovely fall. And I don't even like fall, so you know it must be good.

To My Last Baby, On His First Birthday

2016-06-05T21:18:00.002-06:00

Benjamin,

I went totally bananas on your birthday. I sat down in front of your dad (he was putting something together on the floor, being productive or something -- ugggggh) with bags of party supplies and tried to justify why I spent so much on decorations for a baby birthday party. And that's really a loose term -- birthday parties for our family are normally me calling someone up and being like, "Hey, you want a piece of cake?" But I went to get birthday balloons (say what you want about me, Ben, but I always keep my children well-ballooned) and I walked through the aisles of Party City and decided to get more things. I found an aisle completely dedicated to babies turning one. And I even had to pick a theme. Was Ben an animal kind of baby? Cars? Elmo? Mickey? (Truth be told, you totally do not care. I remember thinking that Adam and Avery sort of liked things, like balls or Elmo, but you don't seem to. You like: to be held, to smile at people, to put things in your mouth, to dance, and when we say "Soooouuup" in high voices. Put those things on banners, Party City.)

But I picked the car theme (not because of the last name thing -- I honestly forget that our last name is a noun most of the time), and bought banners and swirly things and some fan things and paper lanterns and a thing to put on your high chair and I had to sit down in front of your dad and explain why.

Why.

Babies only turn one once.
He won't be a baby much longer.
I broke his leg and I feel bad.
He won't be a baby forever.
He will never have a first birthday again.
We will never have a baby have a first birthday again.
I will never have a baby have a first birthday again.
I will never have a baby again.

Ben, this is a little tonally inappropriate for baby-reading, so just skip the next few paragraphs and I'll just talk to the nice people on the internet.

If I could pick a perfect world, it'd be full of babies. I don't mind the sleep deprivation, I like that they don't talk, and I like the faces they make. I like chubby babies and skinny babies. I like the way diapers look when they're stacked up next to the crib. Poop doesn't really phase me. I'm really good and catching spit-up in my hands. I like to praise them for the mundane things that they do. Good job for looking over at the window! You're so smart! Good job eating that book! I like to make them dance. I like when they fall asleep and look tipsy. I like to pretend that newborn babies are singing opera and I like to hold them up over the shower door to scare Jeff when he's in there. I like to make up stupid songs for them (If you wanna be my favey, you gotta be more like Ben. Babies are my favies, babies are my frieeeends.) and I like to make up words for them and I kiss them about every 3 seconds.

I love babies. And honestly, I always have. I didn't have a lot of exposure to babies as a kid, but when I did, I'd feel a quake inside me and I'd honestly feel like that baby was the cutest thing I had ever seen and there was a small part of me that just wanted to start shouting for joy because that baby was so freaking cute. And I was always a little bit frightened by that feeling, that exultation that babies gave me. I never correctly diagnosed it as, "Oh yeah, maybe I should have kids." I always wanted kids, but more in a vague way. I wanted to wear dresses, read books and fall madly in love more. Kids were just something that came after the happy ending.

But then kids... well, kids were the happy ending. These little humans who take so much from me and maybe literally are driving me insane and stealing my brain power are also what I wanted most in the world. And we'd talk about what I'd do when they were older (write, maybe teach, more school) and it be this vague and fuzzy thing because it was something to think about later. It was something for after the happy ending.

And I've had this gathering dark feeling that keeps growing as Adam started school and as Avery learned to read and it spilled over on Ben's first birthday. That day is coming. I am exiting the days of "no pants because the baby peed on them and because pants are the worst." I'm going to have to figure out how to cut oranges up for soccer practice. We currently just kind of peel them and let the kids go to town, but I'm going to have to cut them and put them in coolers. DO WE EVEN HAVE A COOLER? We're going to start watching regular Disney Channel. That Jessie girl is too young to be a nanny, dang it! And I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm going to have to learn how to throw a frisbee. I think frisbees are really dumb and not at all fun to catch.

It's ending. I won't always be a mother to small children. I'm going to be a mom to just children. And they talk a lot. And they don't always like my songs. They're continent most of the time, but that just means I have to clean bathrooms.

And I feel like such a narcissist, making the idea of my kids getting older about me, but I just don't know if I can do it. I feel like having babies has brought out the best of me and I just don't want that gone. Can I muster the same wonder that I feel when a baby laughs even as I spend my evenings helping with math homework? Will it be gone? Will the unconditional love I can feel for a teething baby still be there for a kid who is talking back? How can I bear the heartache I'll feel when the babies who blew spit bubbles make bad decisions? Will I look at them and wonder what happened because I held them and they were perfect? Does the sun have to set on that emotion? Why are we given the human experience of feeling complete unconditional love and watching that love never leave you, but instead vacating your arms to take slow steps toward the bus stop?

I think I'm getting it. I hope I'm getting it. When Adam and I talked about this beggar we saw in Sarajevo and I had to explain to him that the world wasn't kind to everyone, but we could try to help and he got it -- he got it. And when I see Avery laugh with her friends at school. When I see Ben smile as he figures out how to stick magnets on the fridge. I think love might be a chemical reaction. My joy at a baby smiling will turn to joy at my child, who once was unable to even lift their own head, ride a bike and make friends and solve problems and give love to others. My love for Adam as he builds with Legos is made up of the same components of the love I felt when he looked up at me the first time. Maybe that love has been mixed with time and anxiety and different responsibilities and growing minds and Legos left on the floor, but the love isn't diluted. It wasn't wasted. It's there as he smiles at the bus driver and in the cards he writes his dad. It's there in the squeals he made when he heard the ice cream truck. Or maybe we feel love in such a concentrated way in the beginning to get us through the disappointments and disobedience. I don't know. Maybe I don't get it yet.

But Ben, I accidentally made this about me and I accidentally tried to voice one of my many existential crises instead of express what I came here to say. I will probably do that a lot in your lifetime. But I just wanted to tell you that I cried the night before your birthday. And some of it was about me, but a lot of it was about you.

Ben, you are the last part of my happy ending of having children. You are the last little human that I will hold and look at and think "Oh, there you are." And yes, that makes me sad. But I also cried because you are such a beautiful ending. Really, you are the chubbiest, drooliest, most beautiful ending I could have ever imagined. I love a perfect ending.

Ben, I will teach you how to walk, I will teach you how to read, and I will teach you how throw a frisbee, once I get the knack of it. I will agonize over the wrongs you make and I will always give you balloons on your birthday. And yes, I will miss the years of holding babies in my arms.

But I have a sneaking suspicion that the next chapter of our lives will be amazing.

Little A is a Little Older.

2016-04-04T14:46:00.000-06:00

I try to write a post about my kids on their birthdays, but it's always hard to do because the only thing to say is "This is how my child is right now." And maybe it's wrong, but it's hard for me to just write simple things about my kids, because I realized that it just sounds like dog show stats or something. Avery is 36 inches tall and has a glossy coat of hair. But this is a mom blog and I am a mom and I want to remember Avery at 3. Oh, how I will miss Avery at 3. There is something inside my heart that has a harder time with Avery getting older. I am always super excited for Adam to get older, for all of the things that he's learning, for the kid he is becoming. But Avery, to me, is still little. 3 is little. 4 is less little. I don't want Avery to grow up. She is so cute and so sweet and so good and I want her to stay this way forever. Minus the tantrums, of course.

Some points about Avery:

Avery is super intelligent. Hey, we all think that our kids are the smartest, I know, but sometimes Avery is so smart that it unnerves me. She reads very proficiently. Lately I play a game where I write notes to her to see if she can read them and she always can. Always. They're not incredibly difficult notes, but they're things like "Avery can read now, That is so crazy." and "Ben smells bad and Bear sat on a stinky shoe." I am always impressed by her. She can count past 100. She can do simple math problems (addition and subtraction). And I swear to you, I have never tried to teach her any of this. She just really likes to learn and kind of just figures it out.
Avery has an insane memory. I don't know if this is related to the above or not, but Avery has an incredible memory. Sometimes people will say that it's too bad that Avery won't remember our time abroad and I have to kind of laugh because I know logically that most people don't remember much from being 3, but she remembers everything. She always brings up the time that a bug stung her neck and she caught it in her hands and that happened when she was 1 1/2. She talks about specific details about things that happened months or years ago. I know that you'll have to take my word for it, so here is a recent example: Jeff called from work our first week here to give us his Bosnian work number and I repeated it aloud. A few days later, Avery asked to call Dad and she started repeating his phone number. She didn't get it all, but she knew the first 5 numbers of something that she had just heard once, several days beforehand. I was pretty freaked out, because I'm afraid that I'll scar her for life because she remembers everything I do. It's a lot of power!
Avery is spicy. That is the word that I usually use to describe her and I feel like its pretty accurate. She is generally very congenial, but she rebels in ways that surprise me and she gets angry over things that can be pretty insignificant. Like, for example, she is unwilling to eat breakfast, get dressed, and leave the house every single day. Without fail. But the weird thing about Avery is that if you force her to do something, she's absolutely fine and has a quick turnaround. For example, there are a lot of indoor playgrounds here in Bosnia and they are pretty nice and cheap. Adam loves them and wants to go frequently. Avery never wants to go. If I ask her nicely to go, she'll yell and yell. If I take off her shoes and put her down inside the playground, she will be completely happy in 2 minutes. Avery really likes having the power of dissent, but also seems to be fine when I make her do things. It always surprises me.
Avery's favorite phrases are "I have some good news!" and "I have some bad news!" The usual line up is "I have some good news: it's your best friend, Bear!" and "I have some bad news: Mr. Tongue is here!" (That second one just means that she's about to stick out her tongue.) She also loves to tell us the good news whenever she uses the bathroom and we're like, "thanks".
Avery loves Ben. She is such a sweet big sister. I wish I could transfer the tone of voice she uses when she talks to Ben to the screen, so you could get it. She is just enamored with him. She also likes to pretend he is a chicken nugget and "eat" him. Lately, she pretends to dip him in sweet and sour sauce.
Avery loves Adam. She loves to let him boss her around, she's always giddy when he involves her in his schemes. I think Adam takes it for granted. Today he wanted to design a full-body costume and he made Avery stand still while he wrapped string and paper around her and she loooved it.
Avery is a rebel. A lot of people know this story, but Avery has a little rebel heart. She decided she doesn't want to be baptized when she turns 8 (she's not keen on the immersion part) and so she refused to acknowledge the number 8 for a few months. Like, she would purposefully skip the number while counting. She also found out that women don't get the priesthood in our church and she was so upset that she staged a silent protest on the floor in nursery. She also was furious a few weeks ago because there have been no prophets named Avery. She cried for an hour.
Avery is generous and considerate. She loves noticing things that people like and she thoughtfully considers gifts, She likes to do things that make specific people happy. If it's a special occasion for someone, I always ask Avery what she thinks we should give them because she honestly has insightful answers. She knows what colors, what foods, what shows so many people like.
Avery is feminine. Everyday, I do my makeup and I tell Avery that I'm going to do my makeup and she immediately drops what she's doing and sits in a chair and just watches me, grinning. She loves makeup. She loves dresses. She loves the color pink. She asks me to paint her nails every single day.
Avery walks on her toes. She says she wants to be a ballerina. She also loves to do yoga and she really is surprisingly graceful.
Avery loves to compliment people. She will tell strangers if she likes something they're wearing. She loves to compliment my appearance, Jeff's jokes, Adam's pictures, Ben's cuteness, among other things.
Avery enjoys speaking Bosnian. Adam does not like to as much--he gets shy--but Avery really likes to say words in Bosnian. She tells so many people "Dobar dan! Hvala! Ciao!" every day. It is adorable.
Avery is charming. Avery just wins people over. There are a lot of people who have a soft spot in their hearts for her and it's funny because she can be very hot and cold in a lot of ways, but she just gets people wrapped around her finger.
Her favorite food is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or spaghetti sauce.
Her favorite movie is probably "Escape from Planet Earth," which yes, is very random.
Her favorite books are anything with nursery rhymes or fairy tales. She loves the Gingerbread Man and the 3 Little Pigs, especially.
She has a penchant for falling asleep on adventures, though she hasn't regularly taken a nap for 2 years.
Avery is photogenic. Whenever I take pictures she looks off to the side and I'll tell her to look and she'll just look up and have a perfect model smile.

Ok, I'm having a hard time thinking of dog show stats, so I will end this. Avery, if you ever read this, you are so special to me. I am so glad to have you be my daughter. You are fierce and intelligent and kind and contrary and I feel like we could all learn something from you. You are never less than you are and I hope that you will never hide your emotions or downplay how smart you are or stop questioning or loving unconditionally. Don't be afraid to be what you are because you might be completely perfect. I hope you have a great birthday, and I hope that that cake we ordered is actually good because there definitely was a language barrier. Love, Mama.

Yelling at the pigeons in Pigeon Square.

We went hiking yesterday and she did a lot more of it than I would have expected.

Benjamin is only a few pounds lighter than Avery. :-/

Avery loved the view. I loved the view of her.

That One Time When We Went to Bosnia (NOW.)

2016-03-31T13:20:00.001-06:00

I do feel like everyone who reads my blog probably knows this one but... we are in Bosnia 'til May. I know that came as a surprise to almost everyone, but it really was sort of a whirlwind idea. First of all, to clarify: Jeff works on Bosnia. Everyone thinks he probably does something with Russia and that would be a completely reasonable assumption, but since 2013, Jeff has been doing foreign policy work on a few countries in the former Yugoslavia.

When you live in DC and you work in foreign affairs, you are immediately asked by everyone if you plan on living abroad. Usually, the answer is yes. That's basically the biggest benefit of doing this sort of work: the ability to live and work abroad in a comfortable and safe situation. But the idea never really appealed to me, because well, living in Bosnia with small children never appealed to me.

But...

I've always liked exploring. So has Jeff. Honestly if we had to fill out a couples' questionnaire about our marriage, that is probably our favorite thing to do together. We drive to the next towns over and drive around to just see what the neighborhoods are like. We walk the roundabout way to places for no reason at all. We visit all of the obscure branches of the country library and compare the selections. We just enjoy seeing new places, no matter how mundane. Maybe especially how mundane. I like to visit the small towns in Loudoun County and wonder what people do for a living. Do they commute to DC? How early do they get up? Do they take the toll road the whole way? I know that is basically the most boring thing you can think about, but I do. A lot. I just like to see how people live.

But...

That didn't mean I wanted to go to Bosnia. I guess I have to admit that I really didn't know very much about Bosnia. I knew that it insists on being called Bosnia AND Herzegovina and that there was a war there in the '90s and that some of the population was Muslim. I never really had any more interest in it.

But...

Jeff came home his first day of working on Bosnia and sat down and said, "That place is a mess." And the promise of something being a mess intrigued me, so I started learning more about Bosnia. And Jeff is right, it is kind of a political mess. (They have a tri-presidency! They have one president who represents the Serbs, one who represents the Bosniaks and one who represents the Croats and the three of them just BE PRESIDENT together.) But the more I learned about the people of Bosnia, the more they inspired me. They are rebuilding their country after a horrific (seriously, just terrible) war and they don't have the luxury of separating themselves from their enemies. I really don't think very many people would be able to move on as well as they have. And I know that anyone who knows anything in-depth about the country would probably disagree with that statement, but the fact that they live and work together and don't kill each other gives me a lot of hope for the world in general.

And...

Admiring a place doesn't mean that you pack up your family and go spend a few months there. Obviously. But opportunities kept coming up for Jeff to do some short-term work in the region and he never took them because he didn't want to be apart from us for that long. And we never asked about the possibility of our whole family being accommodated because it wasn't something that I wanted.

But...

Suddenly I did want it. Actually it was probably gradually, but I realized it pretty suddenly. I wanted to spend some extended time in Bosnia (and for honest record-keeping, the opportunity to go to Serbia came up too) and I don't know what changed in me, but I wanted to go because we can. Does that make any sense? Probably not.

I just...

I don't know. Do you ever think about if you were to die tomorrow what you wish that you've made sure to teach your kids? I think about that a lot. I know that it sounds pretty corny when I type it up, but something that I want to make absolutely sure that I teach my children is that their reality is not everyone's reality. We live in the most affluent county in the country and we can go 30 miles east to DC or a little further west to West Virginia and find people, really good people, living in generational poverty. And we'll drive back home and go to Safeway or walk to the library and our lives will continue as they were before. I know that sounds heavy-handed and I don't know how to articulate it, but I hope that I can show them that there are good people living in very different circumstances all over the world. And yes, I do hope that develops into empathy, but mostly I just want to them to remember that there are people walking, working, laughing, skinning their knees all over the world. I guess that I just hope that maybe someday the kids will read the news and see something about Bosnia and picture all of the people who have helped lift the stroller, instead of just reading a headline.

And...

Yeah. Heavy-handed or not, we decided to come to Bosnia. I mean, that is simplifying a lot of components that caused me a lot of extreme angst and vacillation (like: how coming would impact Jeff's career, how it would impact Adam's schooling, the children's genuine desires to travel, Ben's easygoing nature, how it would impact our church responsibilities, the Paris attacks and the State Department's travel warning and the general office bureaucracy and flippancy on our specific dates). But eventually, we made the choice and we stuck with it. And then we finally got specific confirmation that we were leaving like three weeks before the actual day and everything was craaaazy. I can't remember, but I'm pretty sure I had a two-week-long mental breakdown.

Anyway...

We're here in Sarajevo and we're very much enjoying ourselves. They eat a lot of bread and meat here, so basically... Mama like. There's so much to say about what being here is like. It's actually probably a lot like if you put a completely picturesque city in a snow globe and then shook it up and everyone started smoking cigarettes. That's a pretty decent start. It's a mess, it's beautiful, and everyone smokes. Everrryone smokes. I saw a kid who was smoking and put out his cigarette by driving over it with his Razor scooter. (Oh yeah, he was about 10).

But...

Despite the fact that the toy stores smell like bars, the people are good and kind and every single day that I've been here someone has been exceptionally kind to me and my family and maybe that's worth going across the world for.

Also, for all of that bread and meat. That makes it worth it.

I always feel like I should put up pictures after posts, but I'm feeling really lazy. My Instagram is public right now, so you can see some pictrures on the right. I go back and forth between public and private based on whether someone has been creepy, so reign that in, Creeps of Instagram.This is Avery at a cafe today. Food is ridiculously cheap here and I don't have all of my cooking utensils, so we eat out more than we would in America.Also, I literally push the kids in the stroller a few miles a day (Adam is too big for the stroller, I know, but cars drive on sidewalks here and he likes to run ahead of me so I frequently make him get in the stroller because I'd like him to survive this trip) and I get ravenous after a while. Yes, I let Avery drink a Coke. She had like three sips and I finished it so I'm not feeling too bad about it, Actually, I'm feeling pretty good about it.

Maybe Next Blizzard

2016-01-26T20:18:00.002-07:00

We've been snowed in for a few days. We knew it was coming -- I'm secretly very into meteorology, so I had been following the forecasts, waiting up to see the weather models, and the consensus was that the DC area was going to be hit by a blizzard.

And this is the part where I should have just bought chips and candy and built a blanket fort in front of the TV for the children, but instead of that, I googled and Pinterested.

I've always had kind of an issue with Pinterest. It probably all started because frankly, I think Pinterest is a super stupid name. I have a lot of issues with social media names. I don't even want to acknowledge Tumblr because VOWELS ARE IMPORTANT.

But anyways, yeah, I have a bit of a thing with Pinterest. It's not that I hate it, but I just feel weird when I use it. I feel like I do when I go clothes shopping and I try on new clothes. I look in the mirror in the changing room and when I'm wearing the new clothes, everything is ok, but as soon as I put my regular clothes back on, I look like garbage. I almost feel embarrassed to walk out of the store in my troll clothes. That's basically how Pinterest makes me feel: like I'm wearing troll clothes. I thought I was doing ok, but then I see these pins and oh crap, why am I not making biodegradable dish soap??? Why am I not doing freezer meals?? Why haven't I taught my kids math with spaghetti noodles and magnets and why doesn't my hair look angel-blessed because I saw that you can use tin foil to make your hair look angel-blessed?

I do use Pinterest occasionally, but usually only to find ways to over-celebrate mundane events. Pinterest is really good for that. Pinterest is probably behind the high amount of celebration that St. Patrick's Day gets now (Adam asks me to celebrate it and I always respond that we can start celebrating it when we start getting more Irish because sometimes I'm a jerk, but I do always make corned beef and cabbage but that's because I just really like cooked cabbage and not enough holidays allow me to embrace that and wow this sentence is super long and not at all flattering) and I did check and there are boards dedicated to Flag Day. So watch out for that, because it's coming and you heard it here first.

But I fell into a snow-day Pinterest trap. Sometimes I'm a jerk, but sometimes I'm a schmaltzy little gumball and I just wanted to make our blizzard magical. So I decided that we would: make igloos! Make colored igloos! Make snowmen! Make snowmen that make regular snowmen look like garbage! Sled! Drink hot cocoa! Do crafts! Eat comfort food! Bake! Do puzzles! More puzzles! My, what a quiet and calm time we're having doing all of these puzzles! Screen time need not apply! Magical memories, check!

The first little bit was nice. We loved watching the snow fall. We stayed in our pajamas. The kids and I painted hearts and decided to Mod Podge some tissue paper on a box because #memories and this may not be the place to admit it, but I'm still not 100% what Mod Podge is. I mean, I'm pretty sure it's just fancy glue, but I bought some because my stupid Pinterest crafts keep calling for it. Despite the fact that there is now just a random cardboard box decorated with tissue paper on the living room floor, the first little bit of being snowed in was very nice.

But the snow kept falling. And falling. And falling. It pressed high up against the patio door and when it got to three feet and Jeff couldn't find the shovel, even though it had been visible -- and leaning upright against the house -- a few hours ago and I started to feel disquieted. We weren't staying inside using fancy glue because we wanted to. It was because we couldn't leave. Honestly, it started to feel a lot like the scene in The Fellowship of the Ring where they're all just stomping around the mines and then they realize that everyone is dead and they read the journal with the "We cannot get out," and then the orcs come and Gandalf yells at them and falls down a hole with a hell-demon. That's how I started to feel.

And maybe you may be reading this and may remark on how messed-up it is that I compared having to spend time with my family with falling down a hole with a hell-demon, and that may be a fair criticism. I mean, Gandalf does miraculously survive the fall, if that makes it any better. And I do love my family tremendously. But our foibles do seem to become more pronounced when we haven't left the house for five days. I get grumpy, but not in a charming way. I say things like, "Eat your beans so you don't die" and "I ate all of the candy, suckers." I also frequently also go upstairs to "get something" and "fall down" on the bed and play Bejeweled.

Jeff chomps on ice and cleans up things that I'm currently using. Basically, if I need to open the fridge to get milk and eggs, I'll pull out the milk and he'll swoop in and shut the door as I put the milk on the counter. If I ever open the fridge AT ALL, Jeff is convinced that I will leave it open forever. And that's just really unlikely, because the fridge beeps at you if you leave it ajar for like 5 minutes. Not that I EVER WOULD.

Adam runs around a lot, and not in a figurative way. He literally just runs around in a circle. He says he needs his exercise.

Avery throws a tantrum whenever we ask her to eat. I can't really make any jokes about it. It's part of the reason I say stuff like "Eat our beans so you don't die." One of the only ways to get her to eat is to ask her a math problem she doesn't know and not tell her the answer until she takes a bite. The trick is to make the answer higher than ten so she can't use her fingers to figure it out. If eleven wasn't a number, Avery might never eat again.

Ben is just so cute, but he does sometimes start crying when I turn away from him. I don't even have to move, I just have to turn my head away from his adorable little face and he cries. I'm impressed by his devotion, but it really makes it hard to play Bejeweled.

I'm not sure what conclusions to draw from this experience. I'm always looking for conclusions and I almost never find them. We didn't go sledding, because Avery kept getting trapped in the snow. Turns out three feet of snow is actually pretty daunting when you're just over three feet tall. Adam eventually just curled up in a ball in the snow and looked like he was trying to survive a bear attack, and I realized that our magical memories would have to come from somewhere else until the children become hardier. I hope that they'll have magical memories of the things we did do.

We didn't build a snowman, but Adam collected bits of ice that had fallen from the roof and I kept looking up to make sure that there were no more shards coming down. There were, but we got lucky.

We didn't bake anything homemade, really, I bought some Pillsbury cut-out cookies and we burned them but ate them anyway because Pillsbury knows what's up.

We watched TV. A lot. And it was fun.

We didn't make snow ice cream. We probably could have, but I'm only so-so on eating snow. I used to judge kids who would do it in Alaska. I just felt like the chances of eating moose poop were higher than they would be if you didn't eat stuff off the ground.

We fought. Is it ok to admit that? Avery told me to go to time out by myself for the rest of the night and I was like, "THAT SOUNDS AMAZING."

We loved each other. We spent time together. We squabbled. I did eat the last of the Reese's. We laughed as Ben did this flappy arm dance. Avery pretended to be a chicken. Adam built a very functional booby trap that kind of hurt my leg a little. Jeff and I took a nap on the couch together. We read books, cried, laughed, fought, changed diapers, looked out the window at snow falling and maybe it was magical a little. Maybe we don't need Pinterest-ready days.

Maybe.

But it is a bummer that we didn't build a multi-colored igloo.

Maybe next blizzard.

At the beginning

I wish I could say this was at the end.

The amount of shoveling that Jeff has had to do in the last few days is insane. Bravo, Jeff.

THANKS, FANCY GLUE

No Man is an Island, Except for Me, Because I Don't Really Like Fall.

2015-11-08T21:40:00.000-07:00

I was raking leaves the other day, and that's not as whimsical as I feel like I thought it was as a kid, and that's probably because there are a lot more trees out east. I haven't done the math, but if I had to guess I'd say there are one hundred gazillion trillion deciduous trees on the East Coast and maybe 10 in Utah. If you love trees, you should move here. If you love streets that make sense and friendly cashiers, you should stay in Utah.

Anyway, I was raking leaves and that took hours, so I didn't really have time to bag them up because I actually have other things I need to do besides raking leaves (despite what our tree thinks), but I couldn't leave my huge piles unattended because I knew -- I knew -- that some small child would come along, or some adorable little puppy or a teenager would come along and mess up my pile of leaves. So I strapped the baby onto me and sat down and put the leaves in one handful at a time (because it's actually quite hard to grab piles of leaves with a baby on you) because I knew -- I knew -- that if I didn't do it right away, someone was going to come along and Instagram my piles of wet leaves and mess them up. Darn kids.

And I was reminded, once again, that I'm quite the fall Scrooge.

It's not that I hate fall, I really don't. I like apple cider. The leaves sure look pretty as their chlorophyll breaks down and they slowly starve to death. We find giant gourds and give our kids knives to disfigure them and that's fun, I guess. And Halloween is the only time where you can see bloody zombies and pretty princesses unite together to grab a massive handful of candy out of my bowl, even after I asked them to take just one.

I really don't hate fall. Like I said, I'm quite fond of apple cider.

But despite how I feel about fall, I have to say, I'm pretty impressed by it. You see, fall has done a really good job at marketing itself. Think about the other seasons. Winter knows how to market itself, because winter is like "LOOK, I'M CHRISTMAS!!!" And while everyone is like, "Yay, winter is Christmas," winter quietly whispers the disclosure that nobody hears -- that Christmas is actually four days after winter starts and that there are three more months of darkness and frigid temperatures and they happen to be the farthest away from next Christmas that you can possibly be.

Spring doesn't do a great job at marketing. People are just like, "Oh, spring is so crazy. Make up your mind on the weather, Spring!" And I think spring just sits back and takes that, when really, it should be like, "I am vanquishing winter and bringing you Cadbury Eggs. I DO WHAT I WANT."

Summer doesn't spend any money on marketing because it knows it's awesome. Summer is like the cool kid in the school elections. It knows that people like it, so it doesn't really work hard on its campaign.

Fall, on the other hand, is a marketing genius. Fall really knows how to sell itself. Everyone likes fall, and if there are any other people like me who are rotten to the core and don't really like fall, they at least pretend to like fall. I pretended to like fall for years. I used to say it was my favorite season when I was little, which is ludicrous, because I was spent my early childhood in central Alaska and they don't have fall there.

But I wanted to love fall, I really did. Fall feels like the most intellectual season. The moment fall starts, social media is full of people posting literary quotes about fall's golden hues. Nobody does that for other seasons. No Walt Whitman quotes pop up in spring, no Robert Frost on dark, snowy evenings. I always feel the need to buy books in fall, because fall feels like book time. "Ah, take a walk in the crisp air and read a book because it's fall, and also, apple picking sounds like a great idea, right? We can talk about philosophy on the hay ride over." Give it a rest, Fall! We know you think you're smarter than us and maybe you are, but you need to just sit back and admit that hay is actually a weird combination of poky and itchy and not really suited for riding on at all.

And fall is golden. People always talk about how golden it is. I feel like they might be confused, because the sun is always shining directly in your eyes during fall, so that could just be the temporary effects of fall sun-blindness. The sun starts setting about about 11 AM, I swear, and just high-tails it out by 5, but fall conveniently forgets to mention that part.

Fall's weather gets a lot of praise, but I think there are some significant holes in that argument because fall is either freezing or too hot and search your feelings, you know it to be true. (Somewhere, poor spring is nodding her head in agreement.) Fall makes me want to wear boots, but I actually look pretty bad in boots because they don't go well with giant t-shirts. Fall wants me to be higher maintenance and maybe that's why I resent it so. Also, fall keeps trying to tell me that I need to buy expensive English rain boots. ("Rain boots were supposed to be my thing!" cries poor spring.) And I totally would, but I'm not sure they'd look good with giant t-shirts either. I need a season that can respect my inner hobo and despite the impressive amount of flannel, I'm not sure that fall is the season who can fulfill that need.

And the way that you can really tell that fall knows what it is doing is that the minute fall gets slightly unappealing, when the leaves all fall and when the phrase "crisp" sounds stupid, fall starts shouting, "BY THE WAY, I'M CHRISTMAS TOO!" And we all just sit back and smile and say, "Fall, you little genius, you ARE Christmas. Well done." And fall just does a little victory lap and drops the mic because fall knows what's up. Everyone adores fall.

But fall, I'm onto you. We'll pass each other with narrowed eyes. Yeah, I'll carve the gourds and make the soups and drink the ciders, but I've got my eye on you. And it's a narrowed eye.

Because the fall sun is blinding it again.

FALL: 1, SARAH: 0

The tree in our backyard a few weeks ago. It's bright red now and really pretty, but I'm not going to post a picture because I don't want to disrespect the dead.

At Least I'm Trying: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Holes in my Pants.

2015-10-27T20:03:00.000-06:00

Jeff asked me what I wanted to write about and I told him the truth: that I wanted to write about how I'm a horrific mess of a mother and human being.

"You're not any more of a mess than anyone else is," he snorted.

He's wrong of course. He has this problem where he's always wrong when we have disagreeing opinions. I'm not calling him obtuse or anything, but he really needs to refer to past notable cases. THE DEATH PENALTY- Sarah right, Jeff wrong. PARTY IN THE USA, GREAT SONG OR ONLY OK- Sarah right, Jeff wrong. PUTTING YOUR SOCKS ON BEFORE YOUR PANTS IS WEIRD- Sarah right, Jeff wrong.

I am a mess right now, I am. I realized it as I was late for Adam's bus (again) and I had to abandon Avery on the sidewalk down the street and book it running to catch it, with Ben a bouncing ball of jello in the Ergo. "I'M HERE, ADAM! STOP! I'M HERE! I got there, finally, and one of the mothers that wait at the bus stop gave me her number if I ever need some extra help. I wanted to thank her, but I can't remember her name. All I know is that it is NOT Sabra, like the hummus and now I can't look at her without thinking about hummus and I really want to ask her name again, but I always have a fear that not being able to understand accents makes me racist somehow, like my ears have stopped listening on purpose or that I don't think knowing her name is important. I don't want to be racist, so I keep on pretending I know her name because knowing her name is important, and she's told me several times and all I know is that it is NOT Sabra. My current plan is to become good enough friends that I can text her and ask for the correct spelling to put her name into my phone. Then I will google the pronunciation of it all day long and maybe also google hummus. I really like hummus, which might be the culprit behind this whole racist fiasco.

I'm a mess every single day that I drop Adam off for school. I'm always the last mom there, pulling up right as they are about to close the doors. "GOOOOOO, ADAM, RUN!" Whenever I rush over to help him out, papers fall out of my car door. One time, a partially-eaten APPLE FELL OUT. Please don't call CPS. It was from the day before, I'm almost mostly certain. And it was his apple, so at least I'm feeding him fruits. Food pyramid, y'all.

I'm that mom at Kindergarten drop-off. I tried to pass the bus when the lights were flashing and then I remembered and got flustered and parked illegally. Adam's teacher left the kids to come and tell me I couldn't do that and I just nodded my head, partially parked on the curb and all. All of the other drop-off moms come early, They park their cars and wait by the door. If they have other kids, they're sitting nicely in strollers. I come late, park illegally, and leave my car idling and my other kids screaming. The other moms intimidate me.

There's one mom that really intimidates me. I know logically that she's done nothing wrong, that she's probably a nice person, but she scares me. She has a little girl, with the name of an ex-president, Madison, McKinley, Buchanan, something like that. She always has a gaggle of other moms standing with her and she's always discussing school policy with the teachers and aides. She's always very cool and collected and she's almost always wearing yoga pants. Don't get me wrong, I wear yoga pants too, but we wear them really differently. She wears them because she probably actually did yoga while little Grover Cleveland quietly played in the corner. I wear them because I didn't have the strength of character to face pants with buttons that morning and because I'm trying to not wear my trash-bag pants in public so much since they got a hole in an undesirable place, I'm trying, She wears them coupled with those puffy vests and a Starbucks cup and I wear them with my husband's novelty t-shirts since I'm trying not to wear my Ninja Turtles shirt in public so much since it got a hole in an undesirable place.

There are times I really wish I could be like her.

But there are times that I remember that I don't drink coffee, I don't wear puffy vests because my arms get cold and don't arms deserve some quilted goodness too? I mean, are you really that much warmer? And yes, Ben and Adam do hypothetically share parts of their names with former presidents (and Avery shares her with a character on Dog with a Blog), but it's ok that we're a different type of family. It's ok that I'm that mom.

There is freedom in failure as long as you keep trying and I know that sounds like something that Gatorade would say, but I believe it. I'm going to keep trying. I wore jeans to drop off Adam today, then I changed back into my snowflake pajama pants. I keep meaning to wash those, but then I keep wearing them instead. I changed back into jeans because I was expecting company and yes, they are THAT dirty and I'd much rather be that person, you know? I'd rather be comfortable in pajamas than sad in real pants and I'd rather let my flaws show through like the holes in my trash bag pants (why do I keep talking about pants?? I hate pants!) because my victories feel sweeter that way. I made a healthy dinner tonight, despite being a complete disaster. I yelled less, despite the piles of laundry. Isn't that neat? I kept going even when Ben peed on my shirt and laughed. I laughed back, I forgot to change my shirt for a long time, but I washed my hands. I taught the kids a little, even if I let them watch TV more. There's something that kind of smells in the basement, but I put an air freshener down there and I'll figure it out. I'll get there.

And maybe, just maybe -- don't get ahead of yourselves or anything -- maybe Jeff was a little right. I am a wreck, (the astonishing number of unanswered texts and emails testify of that), but maybe Drop-Off Mom is one too. Maybe she hates real pants too. Maybe her arms really don't get cold. Maybe she drinks her morning coffee because she's exhausted. Maybe she wears her nice sunglasses to avoid wearing make-up. That's very hypothetically clever of her, maybe we should be friends. Maybe I don't know her at all and I shouldn't project my insecurities on her or her sweet daughter. Maybe that's wrong of me to judge her, when I am certainly in a great position to be judged by others.

I will take my judgments and I will add them to the piles of pants, apples falling out of cars, flustered mornings and frustrated afternoons and I will label it "Not quite there yet, keep on trying" pile and I'll do that.

I'll keep on trying a little harder to be a little better.

In my snowflake pajamas.

WHAT'S UP

On Letting Go and Avoiding the PTA.

2015-09-21T20:17:00.000-06:00

"Is he ready?" He's excited. He loves learning. His preschool teacher thinks he'll do really well.

"Are you ready?" Ohhhh, definitely.

I wasn't ready.

"I'm not ready for this." The thought pulsed through my head as Jeff and I followed the other parents, as they marched, like a herd of cows, through the doors on Back to School Night. Everyone seemed to know what they were doing, where they were going. Past the main office, past the booths selling t-shirts, past the flyers for the millions of dojos in town. We held hands through the swarm and I squeezed Jeff's hand too tight. It hurts him, I know it hurts him, but I'm an emotional hand-holder. I squeeze hands when I'm touched, when I'm angry, when I'm happy, and in this case, when I'm about to throw up out of nervousness.

I wasn't ready.

We all mill into a giant room that is a gym, but for some reason, isn't called a gym, but a multi-purpose room or meeting room or something really nondescript and vague. I hate that. Just call it a gym. I can tell Jeff feels it too, the feeling that our world has just shifted and we're supposed to sit calmly as the principal announces all of the teachers like they're an NBA lineup. "Let's get ready to ruuuuuuumble!" The people behind us sit and gossip about the first-grade teachers and the PTA. "Oh, Tiffany got treasurer? Really??" I want to stand on my folding chair and yell at them. I don't care if you wanted your kid to have Mrs. Boucher, this is a big deal. I feel like I can't breathe -- there feels like there is something pokey in my chest. I will Web MD that later: pokey chest, The painted dolphins on the walls are laughing at me, I swear they are. After all, dolphins are super smart. They're smart enough to know that I'm having a breakdown. Home of the Dolphins! Don't throw up in the multi-purpose room! It's really just a gym! You're not ready!

I wasn't ready.

The PTA president gives an intense talk and all I get from it is that my kid will won't succeed and will probably become a garbageman if I don't join the PTA. I think that's what she said. Oh, and you can buy dolphin shirts up by the office. We meet his teacher and she's nice, but maybe a little intense and we fill out a million forms and there's a fish with his name on it and oh, is that a tear in my eye or maybe just allergies? Some really gung-ho moms push their way to the front and sign up to be the main room mothers, but there are still about 10,000 slots left for volunteers. We love it when you volunteer! But never, ever, ever bring food. I stare at the line that asks what my volunteering availability is. My first instinct is to put ALWAYS down, but I decide to put EVERY DAY 9-5 down instead, I put the 9-5 down to maybe trick people into thinking that I have a job after 5 fighting crime or maybe working in one of the aforementioned million dojos. In reality, I spend my evenings on the couch, eating junk food and watching Jeff be productive. Right now he's studying Russian and I just ate a Snickers. I like to buy candy at the grocery store checkout. I tell the kids they can't have any, but when they aren't looking, I put candy bars for me up on the conveyor belt. They're short -- they can't see.

Obviously, I wasn't ready.

We make our way back through the halls. Suddenly, the PTA booths are fully manned. They've got sign-ups and laser eyes. JUST STARE AT THE GROUND, JEFF. THEY CAN SMELL OUR FEAR. IF WE LOOK UP, I MIGHT HAVE TO SIGN UP AND WORK WITH TIFFANY THE TREASURER AND I'M NOT READY. ALSO I DON'T LIKE TO BAKE. I WONDER IF I CAN JUST SIGN UP TO BUY BAKED GOODS AND NOT ACTUALLY BAKE THEM. I MIGHT BE WILLING TO DO THAT IN THE NAME OF SCHOOL SPIRIT. GO DOLPHINS.

We drive home and we make small talk because we don't really have the words to describe how terrifying that was. We fear in our hearts that we are throwing our baby into a world that is suddenly huge. The world grew significantly from 5-6 pm on Back to School Night. Before it was stuffed animals and forts in front of the TV, but now it's standardized tests and bullies and naughty words heard on the bus.

I wasn't ready.

But we get home and we see him, this little boy, sure to be the smallest in his class and all of the sudden, he is the baby who looked us both in the eyes immediately after birth, but he is also more. He is the boy who will hear the naughty words, take the tests and face the bullies. He will grow and learn and love it and I will always see the face of that baby, but I will bite my tongue and keep that secret in a deep part in my heart. I wasn't ready. I will miss him, even as my feet crunch Legos, I will miss him. I know that in reality, he isn't gone that much, but I know that there is something that is gone and will never come back, and why didn't anyone warn me? Why didn't anyone ever tell me that I would want him to grow up and learn new things and meet new people and become everything that I know he will be, but my heart would mourn at the same time?

I think I figured something out as I walked around Adam's school.

I will never be ready.

But I'll sign the forms and bake the cookies anyway.

*The principal didn't really say "Let's get ready to rumble," of course and I can't remember what the name of the treasurer is. Whoever you are, keep your PTA friends close and your PTA enemies closer.*

Beating It.

2015-09-16T19:57:00.000-06:00

Today, I had postpartum depression.

Yesterday, I felt fine. I took Adam to the park while Avery was at preschool and played games with Avery while Adam was at kindergarten and snuggled Ben and made a vegetarian lentil dish from scratch and thought "Hey, I got this."

Today, postpartum depression sat on my chest. The kids fought and I wondered if they might be the worst kids in the world because I had ruined them. Jeff and I had a misunderstanding and I wondered if my marriage was over because I had ruined it. I looked at the baby in love and fear because surely, I would manage to stamp out the purity in his eyes. Friends? None. House? Dirty as a van down by the river. Life? Ruined, because of my influence, of course. Syrian refugee crisis? I probably had something to do with that too.

I left the hospital after having Ben with a prescription for Zoloft. I know that talking about anti-depressants makes people feel uncomfortable, but, yes, I left the hospital with a prescription for Zoloft. I didn't want to relive the summer after Avery's birth, where I briefly was suicidal. I lined up some additional help at home. I visited family and friends. I got dressed everyday and did my make up. We went on family hikes. I documented the shining moments. I went through all of the articles on how to beat postpartum depression because I was determined to do it right this time. I checked off their lists. Exercise? Faith? Sunshine? Check.

I wanted to be able to tell people that I hadn't really had postpartum depression with Ben. I wanted to beat it. I wanted the pause when I answer "Fine" after people ask me how I'm doing to be because having three kids 5 and under is like I'm the conductor of a symphony of tears and bodily fluids, not because I'm depressed. But I am depressed. Today, at least.

I never have a point when I talk about having postpartum depression, I just want to talk about it. I want to talk about it with acquaintances in the same tone of voice that I talk about the time that I got a staph infection after falling off a bike that my best friend's dad stuck a motor on. I recently sat around a table and we all talked about how we all had had abdominal surgery. I really want to find a table somewhere and talk about how we cried on the bathroom floor and how we fought, so hard, against this inexplicable darkness and how every day brings a new battle. I want that to be OK to talk about.

You see, I know I am beating it when I talk about it. I don't know how I know that, but I know it deep in my bones- I am beating it. Postpartum depression takes so much from me, it really does. I feel so upset when I think about how it sneaks away the gold from this time in our lives. I want to spin around in circles with my kids and feel their joy and wonder. I want to eat pizza because the day was busy and because I want to, not because I feel like I failed to make a better dinner. I want my body to be more exhausted than my soul is at the end of every day. I know I'll get there. Yesterday I was closer. Today, I am farther. But I know that I'm crawling in the right direction because under the smog of my mood, I can feel the echo of a thought from yesterday, "Hey, I got this." The thought is quiet, but I feel it beating inside.

I got this.

Baby Ben

2015-08-27T10:47:00.000-06:00

Well, I haven't posted in almost a year. Yikes, Sorry about that. My computer died and we bought an extremely cheap replacement several months ago and it is absolute garbage, so I haven't been writing much. Anyway, I have an hour and I'm determined to write something. Here goes.

WE HAD A BABY!

Happy words, indeed. Benjamin Steven Carr was born on June 3rd at... oh heck I can't remember. What kind of mother am I? It was early afternoon and he was 6 pounds, 7 ounces. He was our largest baby and he beat Adam by 12 hours to become our longest gestating baby. I guess I'll just recap the last year or so really quickly because I am determined to write something.

Jeff and I have always wanted 3 kids. It was hard to think about for a long time because postpartum with Avery was so difficult, but we knew that our end game was to have another child. In December 2013, we decided we wanted to start trying, but unfortunately there was that whole appendicitis/near death experience thing and that delayed everything quite a bit. It took a little while for me to feel healthy enough again and then it took longer than expected to get pregnant (Adam and Avery were, as I'm sure long-time readers are well-aware, pill-babies, so we assumed that we would get pregnant immediately.) We really don't have any major complaints, though, because we found out that we were expecting by the end of October 2014.

It looked a little iffy at first, because I had some bleeding and then my HCG levels were being funky and it took until 9 weeks along to see ANYTHING in an ultrasound, but things worked out eventually. I think I've blocked out most of the first trimester from my mind. It was a rough time- Jeff got a special assignment at work and started working a crazy schedule of rotating 12 hour days and nights for a few months. My mom came and stayed with us for two weeks and I kept throwing up in the front yard. That's about all I remember.

We told the kids we were expecting on Christmas Eve. They had been wanting us to have another baby for a long time and so they were super excited. Adam wanted a boy baby named Lightning McQueen and Avery wanted a girl baby named Rapunzel. I think they must have watched a lot of TV during my first trimester.

We found out that he was a boy in January, but I was a little unsure for a while because the ultrasound tech said "It looks like a boy" and when I asked if she was sure, she shrugged. But I usually have several ultrasounds in my second tri to check my cervical length, so it was confirmed pretty quickly.

Everything was going pretty swimmingly, except that I had contractions starting at 12 weeks. My body loves contractions, but they are usually not productive. Around 28 weeks, they started getting more troublesome and productive and I got put on bedrest. My mother-in-law, sister-in-law and my mom were basically our angels because they took turns staying with us for 2 whole months. We also had amazing support from our ward. People brought us two meals a week for almost the whole time. It was so wonderful.

I got taken off bedrest at 36 weeks and I was so sure that I would go a little bit longer, but I started having consistent contractions all of that day and I was pretty uncomfortable. They stayed consistent all day, but weren't getting closer together until the evening. I got in bed and felt a super strong cramp. It was a really sudden change and I yelled at Jeff to call the hospital and tell them we were coming. We were at the hospital within 30 minutes of the first pain, because it was just really obvious that I was in labor. When we got there, I was at 4.5 cm and then 6 and then... nothing for hours and hours. I've stalled at around this point in all three of my labors and in the first two they gave me pitocin, but this time they just let me labor. Ben was tolerating my contractions really well and I had an epidural, so I wasn't in pain, so we just hung out. It was kind of nice for the hospital, I'm sure, because there were so many other women giving birth that night. I think I heard 5 babies be born.

I eventually started progressing a little bit, but the doctor thought that I probably had a few more hours to go, and at this point, I had a weirdly emotional moment where I missed Adam and Avery. I asked my mom to bring them to the hospital to say hi and right after I hung up the phone, I started to feel a little bit of pressure. I had just been checked, so it took some a minute to go and fetch the doctor again and by that time I was ready to push. I went from 7 cm to 10 cm in about 20 minutes. I can't remember how long I pushed, but it wasn't very much. I didn't tear at all (I'm sure you're dying to hear about that, but you've just read about a birth, so you really need to be less squeamish), so that was cool. I thought that each progressive birth would probably be easier and easier, but Avery's birth was still the easiest.

Anyway, Ben came out very healthy and it looked like he would not need to go to the NICU, but his blood sugars got a little funky and he couldn't regulate his temperature, so he ended up bunking there for three or four days. (Random fact- each of my kids have gone to the NICU for different issues. Adam- breathing, Avery- jaundice, Ben- blood sugar. All three have also had feeding issues, though.)

It was a pretty non-eventful NICU stay, so pretty soon we were back at home starting our life with three kids. And what is that like? Well, it's a lot like the beginning of Home Alone. There's a swarm of people and someone is always mad at me. We also seem to eat a lot of pizza.

In all seriousness, adding a third kid to the mix probably is the hardest thing that I've done. I feel like I'm trying harder and failing more than I ever have before. But in all sappiness, adding a third child to the mix is probably the most rewarding thing that I've done. The love in my heart sometimes overwhelms me. I do feel extremely blessed.

Gotta go, someone is screaming.

How I told Jeff I was pregnant.

33 weeks pregnant.

They love him. Looooove love him.

A picture I took of Ben yesterday. He's great, super chubby and sweet. I'd upload more pictures, but really, my computer is complete garbage.

To All of the Amazing Moms That I Know.

2014-09-24T14:08:00.001-06:00

I know so many amazing moms.

I know a mom who finished her degree while her husband was in grad school and did her student teaching while she was super pregnant and always seemed to still hold everything together with grace and capability and also fed me dinner a lot.

I know a mom who moved hundred of miles away after a divorce and immediately got a job and enrolled in full-time school. She continues to be hard-working, beautiful and an uncommonly loving mother.

I know a mom who has 4 children 3 and under and a husband who is deployed. She blogs about her life with humor and candor and is a constant reminder to me not that difficult situations happen, but that difficult situations happen and they can be tackled.

I know moms who sing and act and astound with their talent. I know moms who go to school. I know moms who teach. I know moms who teach at home. I know moms who are well-put together. I know moms who are just effortlessly cool. I know moms who are just effortlessly happy. I know moms who excel at living healthy lifestyles. I know moms who work and love it. I know moms who work and ache to be with their kids. I know moms who fall somewhere in between. I know moms who are single and amazing. I know moms who are not single, but due to circumstances, seem to do it all, regardless. I know moms who can peaches and would do better than most in the event of a zombie apocalypse. I know moms who do graphic design. I know moms who do interior design. I know moms who are engineers. I know moms who run successful businesses. I know moms who run successful blogs. I know moms who are amazingly crafty and I know moms who are able to transfer ability that into making money. I know moms who are just writers, deep in their bones. I know moms who are practically world-class chefs. I know moms who are able to keep beautiful homes clean. I know moms who are great at service. I know moms who just care more than the average person. I know moms who are amazing advocates for their children with disabilities. I know moms who have suffered through infertility and loss with remarkable grace. I know moms who I would file under the "might literally be saving the world" file.

In each and every of the above sentences, there are the faces of real women that I actually know. They're a varied group of people with different ages, backgrounds and beliefs, The only common denominators that they all share is that they are mothers and that they would never ever categorize themselves as an amazing mom.

I, of course, am a mother, and I, of course, would never categorize myself as an amazing mom. Some days I worriedly ask myself, "Am I doing a good job? and on the other days, I worriedly tell myself, "I am not doing a good job." I'll be the first to admit that most of my days fall into the second category.

I guess there is another common denominator between all of us, one that we really don't like to admit. How many of us, when we're having the days when we're convinced that we're horrible mothers, think of about other mothers? I do. When my kids misbehave, I think about _____, whose children are well-behaved and mild-mannered. When I realize that my kids have had fast food twice in the last two days (Oh, yeah, that was TODAY), I think about _______, who always cooks healthy meals. When I despair about my own hopes and aspirations, I think about ______, who is a mother and still seems to live her dreams. As I've already made clear, I am surrounded by many amazing moms, and as a mom who thought she might have bedbugs and then realized that, oh yeah, I just ate some cookies in bed, it's easy to negatively compare myself.

And that is so, so ridiculous.

If you're like me, you get all your great life lessons from Mean Girls. If you're not like me, you might not have seen the clip below. It's my favorite part of the movie.

If you're like me, you also almost never ever watch video clips that are posted, so I'll summarize. "Calling someone fat doesn't make you any skinnier. Calling someone stupid doesn't make you any smarter." It's not always an easy lesson to learn, but I think the inverse lesson is even harder.

I know so many amazing moms, moms who are beautiful, accomplished, and kind, Sometimes I feel like I am none of those things. But recognizing that another mom is beautiful doesn't make me sprout warts. Recognizing that someone else is accomplished doesn't make me ignorant. And recognizing another mother's kindness certainly doesn't make me unkind.

I submit that the good things we see in other people are, well, good.

_______ runs a successful cooking blog. Isn't that amazing? Maybe I will try one of her recipes. ______ works in international relations, Maybe she add some context to my understanding of current events. _______ sews beautifully, Maybe she can help teach me how to hem the kids' Halloween costumes (that I did not, and will never ever, make and would have fit them if they'd only have the decency to be normal-sized kids). _______ can tell the difference between bed bugs and cookie crumbs. Maybe I can call her if a similar situation arises. (Spoiler- that last one is ME! I'm amazing!)

You might read this blog about amazing women and feel like you don't make the cut. You do. Trust me, there is someone out there who has seen you and thought that you are amazing. There is someone out there who has thought, "If only I were more like -insert your name-." Actually, it was probably me. (Because I think I've made it clear that if there's anything that I am amazing at, it's creeping on other girls and thinking about their worth. You can go to your local courthouse to get a restraining order,)

But if even if that isn't true; if nobody is telling you what you are worth and if you can't think of a single thing that makes you noteworthy, that still doesn't change this simple truth: giving your time to love, raise, and nurture another human being is hard. The next time you find yourself covered in feces, and yelling things like, "Fake-sleeping doesn't earn you an Oreo!' please remember that.

This is hard and you are still doing it and that's pretty amazing.

Physically incapable of not adding pictures of my family. This is the kids as they made up cheers for the guys repaving the parking lot yesterday. "Go! Make it rocky! Make it smooth!"

How We Spent Our Summer Vacation, AKA, Let Me Just Post a Bunch of Pictures from the Last Six Months.

2014-09-09T14:08:00.000-06:00

Summer is over. It's hard for me to grasp that. I love summer. I'm OK with fall, but I hate winter and whenever summer ends, I feel like something has died. I know (and love) so many people who say things like, "I don't like summer," or "I can't wait for it to be over." I really want to have an intervention on behalf of summer. "What, good sir? You say you don't like summer? So, you don't like happiness and corn and warmth? You prefer Autumn and Winter, those yearly confirmations of our mortality? You, good sir, must be crazy. I prescribe to you more summer to heal whatever ails you."

Winter is always tough for me. I always get seasonal depression when I don't live in California (remind me why we moved?) and this last winter was really brutal on the Midwest and East coast. (Don't you feel silly now, WaPo?) I keep hoping for better, but, dang it... I've been going through my pictures of the spring and summer. I take a lot of pictures, because I really like to take pictures. Most of them don't get posted anywhere and most of them aren't amazing. I do take some pictures to update our families on our lives, but mostly I take them for times like now; times when I need reminders that life is full of seasons (metaphorical and meteorological).

But for all of my whimsical talk, I do eventually like to to label and comment on my pictures, and that sometime requires me to dump a bunch of photos on the blog. This is that sometime. Hang on tight, you're about to see a lot of abnormally cute and small children.

We made some cloud dough. It was messy.

Amy and Cindy came to visit for a week. We all had the stomach flu. That was not fun, but I loved seeing them. Amy braided my hair one day.

I think I looked like Yulia Tymoshenko. I loved it.

We drove to the beach that day. The ocean is several hours away from us, but the Chesapeake Bay isn't far at all. /'

Amy and Adam.

Avery walking with her aunt and grandma here.

Our credit union had a carnival and Adam was insistent that he get his face painted like a panda. We waited in line for an hour.

Avery got a flower. She still talks about this frequently, so it must have been worth it.

Adam's face paint got progressively creepier as the day went on.

Adam went to work with Jeff one day. He even had his own badge.

I took Avery to get bagels that day. That's my job- eating carbohydrates.

The blossoms outside of our house in Reston got insanely gorgeous this year. Luckily, our new house has the same type of tree.

I'm kind of a mean mom, and hid some Easter eggs in places they couldn't reach.

We played with bubbles a lot this spring.

This is a tunnel in Reston that we used to walk through almost everyday.They loved showing me this trick.

Avy sometimes likes to do my hair.

She also likes bananas.

Adam, reading a map.

We went to a tulip farm. Avery picked more than I would like, since they were a buck a flower.

I love this picture. Adam riding in the "petal snow."

Just another view of the petals. They were everywhere.

Grandma and Grandpa Carr came for a visit, and we celebrated Grandpa's birthday.

Just cute.

We took a road trip to Charlottesville. I really liked it there- it seemed like a cool little city and I'm always a sucker for a college town. Here we are at UVA.

We took a tour of Monticello and Avery was very loud, so she and I had to leave the tour early. This is the second historical mansion tour that my children have gotten thrown out of. (The first one)

Luckily, after Jeff's parents finished the tour, I was able to come back up to the house and fall asleep on the lawn. I literally fell asleep.

Adam randomly wanted to take a picture of the three of us one day. "We're such a beautiful family, Mom."

We drew Jeff a chalk message for his birthday.

You better watch yourself, girl.

Adam and Jeff blew out the candles together.

Adam gave a prayer in primary. So cute. He is giving a talk next week, so I predict I'll be overcome by cuteness and pride.

Adam's birthday is 3 days after Jeff's. Jeff snuck out at night and changed our chalk message.

Adam really really wanted to go to Party City and Chuck E. Cheese for his birthday.

Easy to please. Easy to plan.

Taking a picture of his sister.

Adam used some birthday money that he got to buy this toy. He was about 5 bucks short, so I had him earn the remainder by doing chores. He was so proud.

There was a blue jay nest outside my window this spring. Only one egg hatched and then this random cat killed the baby and put him on our porch. I know this sounds crazy, but we came home and the blue jay parents were wailing. They also kept hanging around our porch for several weeks after. I didn't really know animals could grieve and it's something I thought about a lot this summer.

We enjoyed playing out in the rain this spring.

I really enjoyed my time with Avery while Adam was at preschool this last year. It's so fun to have one-on-one time with the kids.

In May, I started doing some chalk art. Adam and I just made this one day while Avery was napping (yes, he helped!) and I got a little addicted to it. I decided to enter a festival, so by the end of May I was practicing everyday. It was such a fun time and I'm glad I found a new interest.

I like to get the kids' pictures taken every year around their birthday, but I only ever print off one (we just go to Picture People and they don't charge a sitting fee), so it's only 18 bucks. This wasn't my choice for a winner, but Adam begged me to get it.

My second chalk drawing.

We went to DC and met up with an old acquaintance at the Natural History Museum. I kept really hyping up the Hope Diamond and Adam just was not impressed. Sorry, bud.

My third chalk drawing. With the first two, I used regular sidewalk chalk. As I was doing this one, I was having a hard time detailing and my neighbor ran inside an brought me some chalk pastels to use. I love chalk pastels.

We took a family drive and one child fell asleep and the other fake-fell asleep.

This is right in the middle of my chalking everyday phase. I guess I should clarify that I mostly like to draw children's book covers. I just do that because the kids enjoy it. I'm not opposed to trying different things, but I really do like doing books.

Cat the Cat is Avery's favorite book character.

Adam finished his first year of preschool. He loved it and loved his teacher.

My kids really like Mo Willems.

This is one of my favorite drawings that I've done.

This one was hard. It's really hard to do super-recognizable characters. I'm not an artist and I don't really have a strong method to drawing. I just stare at the cover for a really long time and decide if I can replicate it.

This is my favorite drawing. Still is.

I really liked the dog on this one, but wish I hadn't tried to do the letters.

This is what I did for the chalk festival. I painted a tempera base (chalk adheres better to it, so you are allowed to to that in a competition), then I outlined the basic fish and scales and noted which ones would sparkle. Then I used a glitter base on the sparkly scales. It didn't really show up unless in the direct sun, but it was fun.

The kids came by and helped.

The finished fish. It's not a great detail shot (the scales turned out really cool), but I'm proud of the overall result. It wasn't the best one there (or even close), but people seemed to really like it. When I'd walk around the festival, I'd hear people talk about it and say nice things and hundreds of people took pictures of it, which I guess they probably wouldn't do if they hated it.

The kids at their well-check ups. Avery is .5% for weight and Adam is 1%. Adam did grow an inch in 2 months, so that's encouraging.

This is just at Reston Town Center. I only took it because I just was filled with overwhelming gratitude for the type of dad Jeff is.

Crossing the street with our buddy, Logan. Also, please note the soda in the stroller. Precious commodity.

I make Adam eat scrambled eggs a fair bit, and he's not a huge fan, but he will eat them enthusiastically if he's helped at all with the process. Even if that means stirring them around after they're cooked.

Kermit the Frog drawing. Last drawing before the move.

Just a picture I like. I call it "guess which child napped?"

We finally went to Clemonjontri, it's an all-abilities park in McLean and probably one of the coolest ones I've ever been to.

Avery loves selling me things at counters. She usually sells cupcakes or paper towels. The price is either "5 bucks" or "10,000 pounds a year." (We have this book.)

Started packing up our house in June. :-(

Made this for Father's Day.

Also, put on a puppet show.

Closed on our house. Man, closings take forever.

On his last day in our ward in Reston, Adam's teacher gave him a book that they've been working on forever. I love it. I want to marry it.

My mom came out and helped us move. This was our first dinner in our new place and I just felt struck with love.

My mom is the kind of grandma who gets in the trenches of playtime.

Worst tantrum ever. I remember taking this picture and looking at it and thinking that it didn't adequately convey how unhappy Adam looked. He definitely looks unhappy here, but in real life, he looked like he wished he was dead.

I took a candid picture of Adam playing at a splash pad. He was so outrageously happy. Avery, didn't like it as much and forced us to leave because she kept taking of all of her clothes. All of them.

We didn't think we'd have the ability to visit home this year, but we were able to (because of completely undeserved generosity) go twice. This was on our way to Idaho. (I feel like most people who read the blog know this, but in case any one was unaware- Jeff's whole extended family spend all major holidays near Sun Valley, Idaho. They actually like everyone enough to do that.) Jeff and Adam are both really fast walkers.

Ave and Ame.

Feeding Pepper her nightly treat. I'm glad I got a picture of this, however blurry it may be. It feels like such a Carr-family tradition.

I realized that the next few pictures are of Adam and Grandpa Carr. They're good buddies. This is them whistling on grass in Sun Valley.

This is them fishing.

They also made a boat.

Riding a zebra.

We enjoyed the addition of a Gimlet fire pit which might possibly be the only thing that Gimlet was ever missing.

Adam and I challenged Avery and Jeff in Ping Pong.

Adam rode on Steve's legs a lot.

We went on a short nature hike with Amy and Cindy.

Jeff, Adam and I went out one day when Avery was sleeping and rode the ski lift up the mountain. I have always wanted to do that and it was so worth it. (Sure wish I could justify doing it every year, but its a little spendy.)

It really was one of those thing that can't adequately be captured.

On the way down. You ride a gondola up to a certain point and then ride a ski lift the remainder. We were nervous about taking Adam, but he did such a great job and stayed very still when he needed to.

Avery and Uncle Greg.

We picked some wild daisies this year and I tried so hard to make a daisy chain, but I couldn't, so we just stuck them in her pigtails.

Then we hunted for butterflies. I love Sun Valley in the summer.

Adam and Ducky watching the fireworks.

There was an attempt to get a picture of the younger generation and Avery would not cooperate. There's a Jeff behind her.

This really calmed her down.

Ha! I looked over and the were both doing this.

"How you doing, Adam?" "Good, but I really don't want to talk to you."

In the kiddie pool.

They have tiny carts at our new Safeway and Adam loves it. He also accidentally hits me with it every single time we shop.

We went to IKEA to get some things for the house and Adam got the the first couch he saw and plopped down like this.

The kids and I made a volcano.

The eruption. Sometimes people ask about the crafts and things I do with the kids, and where I get the ideas, and they're absolutely based on things that I (for whatever reason) didn't do as a kid. For example, I spent my early childhood in Alaska and I always dreamed about visiting a farm, so the kids and I visit farms a lot. I have never made a volcano and always wanted to try it, so we made one. I know it sounds selfish, but it's just generally where I get ideas for activities for us to do.

Avery has a crush on Adam's friend, Logan. Possibly my favorite picture of the decade. Also, The Parent Trap!

Adam reading at the library...

Avy reading at the library.

There are a lot of really pretty trails and paths by our house.

Picture with a giant cow. They begged me to take this picture, so I figure I should post it somewhere.

We went plum picking. It was really fun, but I actually don't like plums, so Jeff had a ton to eat by himself.

I tried to get them to only pick ten. That didn't work out well.

We found cokes for 3/4 of the family this summer and 1/4 of the family drank them all.

Oooh oooh! This is from Skyline drive in Shenandoah National Park. I had been dying to go for quite a while now and it was really nice of my family to oblige, since it made for a long day.

Look how many layers of mountains you can see. These are the Blue Ridge Mountains. Isn't that a great name for them?

I also really wanted to hike around and explore the park (as much as you can in one day with small kids) and the kids had fun walking around with their walking sticks.

We did hike the Little Stony Man trail and I wish the picture did it justice. Here's a link to another view of where we were standing. It is not a hard trail at all, but you'll need to hold your kids at the top. It was so cool and Adam did the whole thing himself.

Oh, I loved Shenandoah. I plan on taking the kids when it's fall. I'm not a big fall fan (too close to winter), so I'm trying to find things to look forward too.

Adam has a weird hidden talent for rock climbing.

Avery has these heart glasses (that she got from Party City for about 20 cents when we went for Adam's birthday- see above) and she straight up reminds me of Elton John when she wears them.

This is at the outlets in Leesburg. It was so hot that day.

We went to a sunflower farm, which was so so gorgeous and fun. We picked some and Adam made me pick the largest ones he could find. They were huge.

Ironically, I can't find the picture of my Sarah coke.

I got my moles removed. My mom has been wanting me to do that for years. I only had princess band-aids to cover my wounds.

They had one of those Cartoon Network cartoons that isn't actually for kids on in McDonalds and Adam found it disquieting.

Avery at our local pool.

We went to Harper's Ferry. I've been there before a couple of times, but Jeff hadn't. We bought some Civil War-era candy that we can't muster up the courage to try.

We walked across the bridge into Maryland. Harper's Ferry is at the intersection for Virginia, MD, and West Virginia.

We got some free things because I played (and dominated, yo) Harper's Ferry Jeopardy. Thank you, John Brown and the fact that I like to read about every place I go before I get there.

Anyways, Harper's Ferry is beautiful.

Adam keeps picking out books at the library that aren't fiction and instead require me to do something. This one was fun.

We hopped on a plane to Utah! Jeff had to work, so I ended up flying with the kids by myself, which I have done before but just really don't like doing. I didn't pack enough entertainment because I made sure to book a plane that had an in-flight movie (Adam will sit still for hours on a plane if there's a movie) and they must have changed planes. We colored a lot and wrote notes to give to Jeff- this reads, "We love you. There are no TV's."

Sleep-dead Avery at the Salt Lake airport.

She was really out of it.

Adam and Avery were the ring bearer and flower girl at my brother's wedding. Adam needed several fittings to get his tuxedo right and he took it very seriously.

The world needs to manufacture more little boy tuxedos.

I don't even know.

My kids are the only grandchildren on both sides of the family and so they sometimes get spoiled tremendously. My brother James bought the kids their fondest wishes. Avery, a tea party set. Avery is just ridonkulously girly and loves imaginative play, so she's been crushing pretty hard on a tea party set for a while.

Adam, a telescope. Adam has been really interested in science and space the last few months.

We went swimming in Daybreak with Uncle Tim and (soon to be!) Aunt Katelin.

The kids LOVE Tim and Katelin.

Adam asks every few days, "Do Tim and Katelin have kids yet? I want them to have kids. When will they have kids?" Adam has a weird habit of asking really specific questions about awkward subjects. You should hear his knowledge of puberty. He loves talking about puberty. He thought Avery's voice was changing the other day.

We went to Rita's, which is actually an East Coast chain, but I've never been to it and I guess it's a big deal in Utah now. I just like this picture of my mom sitting at the tiny table with the kids.

We also visited the new aquarium. I thought it was really great. I have a bit of a thing for aquariums, so I've actually visited quite of few of the really large ones, but I thought this one was really well-done. I loved the penguins.

As I mentioned, my kids are spoiled when with family. and were allowed to pick out a toy at the aquarium.

This is a car that I saw that had the bumper sticker, "What would Nixon do?" I feel like that's one of the weirdest bumper stickers that I have ever seen. Apparently they're sold by the Nixon Presidential Library. I can understand having a soft spot for Nixon or feeling like he had many successes in his presidency, but it's: A). Not a very topical bumper sticker, even if you do really look at current events and wonder what Nixon would do; B). It's just strange to make Messianic overtures about the most disgraced president of all time. (Especially in Provo, where this was taken) I know people use the "WWJD" format and insert other names to be cheeky, but it's just really weird to do it for Richard Nixon, even if you're a big fan. Maybe especially if you're a fan. If you ask people what Richard Nixon would do, they're going to think about things he did do., and 100% of people will immediately recall some negative things about his presidency. If you want to make people like Richard Nixon, you should out a really specific bumper sticker that says something like, "I like normalized Chinese relations."

I went down to Utah county to catch up with my friend Rachel and meet her incredibly adorable little guy.

At Tim and Katelin's rehearsal dinner, Adam ordered a honking huge piece of cake.

My cousin Kyle stopped by to visit and we saw him as we were walking the dog and Kyle helped Adam because it turns out that Oliver is about ten times stronger than Adam.

On the day of the wedding, Avery and my mom and I got our hair done. She did so well. I was really worried about it, but she was just so excited to get gussied up. The girl who did her hair was really surprised to hear that Avery is two because she was just chattering away and sat really still. I get people all of the time who think Avery is older (she speaks well), but the thing is, she's also about the size of a one year old, so I'm impressed that they round up.

The kids were ADORABLE. I mean, I love them and all, but I think that even objectively, they were kill-me-now adorable. Adam did an amazing job walking down the aisle (and even sat down and ended up sitting alone during the ceremony, because Jeff had to leave because...), but Avery only made it half way before throwing her basket down and being disruptive (that's why).

Family picture! We all adore Katelin and are just so happy to have her in the family. I couldn't envision a better sister-in-law. (Dude, that sound like a burn against Amy and Rachel. I just mean that I'm really happy Tim married her! Ah! Love you all!)

My family! I love them. My heart just got so happy when John came into the reception. I love my baby brother (and he's fond of me, since I helped him procure the 1984 edition of Robin Hood. Score!).

Tim and Mom. I don't even know if any one is still reading this blog, since it is a million years long, but I am so proud of my big brother and the person he is.

Adam and I at the reception. We partied hard. I got a blister on top of another blister.

Ah, this is back in VA. Adam got sad and Avery laid down and said, "It's ok, brother."

The kids and I made some art for the playroom. Honestly, it's their room and I thought it'd be fun if they felt some ownership over how it was decorated and we had a blast doing it.

Adam's turned out really great.

We went to Tysons Corner because they recently got a Shake Shack and since trying it in New York a year ago, I have become obsessed. We seriously drive into DC more times than you would expect just to go to Shake Shack. Anyway, Tyson's has a really cool new outddoor area by the metro.

The kids and I went swimming about 4 days in a row at the end of August, twice with our good friends. Several pools are included in our HOA fee's, but we didn't get around to trying the pool that is geared specifically towards kids till the very end of the summer. I had an irrational fear about taking them both to the pool by myself, but it wasn't really that bad. That's my overall experience with parenthood. Most things I dread doing aren't actually all that bad.

Sometimes Adam and I play outside when Avery naps. Adam only naps once in a while, but Avery is in the amazing 3-hour nap stage. so we start to feel cooped up.

Speaking of coop (woo hoo- nice transition, Sary!), this is Adam holding a chick at the farmer's market.

We found this British store in the middle of nowhere and I bought a lot of chocolate, promised I would share, and then ate it all by myself. Oh, I'm sorry to inform you that I'm kind of a bad person, but there it is. This is a chocolate orange in candy bar form.

I was cleaning and Jeff was watching the kids and I came upstairs to them having a tea party. I love Jeff. He is the best. He would definitely share chocolate.

On Labor Day, we went and picked apples.

And the orchard had this little guy, which appears to have a hamburger head and a fish body.

We also drove near a town named Kabletown! With a K!

Maria, who was in Jeff's program at Stanford, came and stayed with us for a couple of days. She is lovely and Avery told me yesterday that Maria was her best friend (I was trying to get Avery to say that I was her best friend).

We went to a splash pad and Avery wouldn't leave my lap until I had gotten them out of their swimsuits and then she ran through in her dry clothes.

Adam has never been very big into drawing, but he's picked it up recently. This is a picture he drew of me and him. (He says that he made me look like a volcano and him look like a squid.)

A few days later, he drew this all by himself. I did have to tell him how to spell Dad and Me, but he wrote it all by himself. I love watching him grow up.

Adam started school. The kids picked out this craft book at the library that was shelved as fiction, and then demanded we make a craft from it, so we made some tissue paper flowers and decided to give them to his new preschool teacher. Adam totally didn't want to smile in this picture, if you can't tell. He normally loves to smile for me, but he was really excited to go.

THE END. TIME TO START HIBERNATION.

Pictures from My Son.

2014-08-02T21:29:00.000-06:00

For Adam's birthday, he got a camera. He asks to use mine all the time and many of my Instagrams are encouraged (re: demanded) by him. He has been asking for his own camera for a while now, and so we bought him one of those super-durable Fisher Price kid cameras. We didn't have very high expectations, since the camera isn't really made to take high quality pictures and because he is four and because the majority of the pictures he seems to take are of his feet, but some of his pictures are just beautiful. It almost makes me want to cry. There are so many details of his life that he painstakingly tries to capture and it's so interesting to see what makes the cut. I started to go through and caption them, but then I realized most don't need one. They are mostly simple pictures, but they touch my heart deeply.

I see our life together through my own field of vision and to me, a toy on the floor is really just an annoyance and a leaf on the ground is not really anything new, so it's so poignant to see some things from Adam's perspective. I would probably never take time to notice the sun shining through the trees that I see every day and I would never think dishes in the dishwasher are be beautiful. But these things are not just normal to him- they are precious and I want to just plead to Heavenly Father, or to anyone who is listening, that some of that pure, unadulterated goodness could just seep into the rest of the world. There is so much we can learn from children and I don't mean that with any condescension- Ah, from the mouth of babes- I truly think that there is something right in them that eventually gets lost.

I don't know what Adam's story will be. I pray that he will someday grow up and be a happy and productive member of society. But is it wrong that my heart just bleeds when I think of the day that he will stop thinking that a blade of grass is a perfect mystery of the universe? How much longer till he realizes that dust particles in the air are not a big deal (and not little snowflakes) and how much longer till the world is something other than "beautiful!" or "amazing?"

If future Adam ever happens upon this blog, I want him to understand one true thing. The world is still beautiful and amazing to your father and me, even though we have grown up and even though we no longer feel a sense of awe when the wind blows strongly.

It is still beautiful and it is still awe-inspiring and it is still amazing and that is because of you.

This is our doormat in Reston. We had orginially wrote, "Happy Birthday, Daddy," for Jeff's birthday, and then the night before Adam's birthday (3 days later), Jeff snuck out and changed it to "Happy Birthday, Adam." He loved it.

I can't be sure, but I think this is the tree in our front yard in Reston.

There are several pictures of me taking pictures of him, or on my phone in general and it just makes me cringe, though I suspect Adam realized how clever it is to take a picture of me taking a picture.

Stars on Avery's shirt.

Jeff and I holding hand in the car. (I hope! That's awkward if we just put our arms that close together for no reason.)

There are many picture of his mouth and I love them all so much.

Skyping Grandpa Carr.

Ducky pops up several times, of course.

So many of his feet.

He took pictures of several plants in the front of our house in Reston. As it got closer to the time that we moved, more and more of his pictures are an homage to our house there.

Baby chick.

House numbers.

Getting ready to go somewhere.

Avery watching TV.

There are about 30 pictures of Jeff's buddy Zach, who came and visited and obviously made an impression.

Isn't that cool?

The One Where We Bought a House

2014-06-15T15:36:00.000-06:00

(This post was started a long time ago and I'm just trying to get it finished, regardless of how rough the finished product turns out. As per usual, I refuse to proofread.)

Honestly, I've had a rough few weeks (or if I'm being completely honest, a rough 6 months). Our car broke down 2.5 times (First our rear brakes went out and then our battery died right after we ran out of gas, so those two are combined), I broke my phone (ahem, the second time in the last 2 months, but also the second ever), I've had a some minor medical issues, and the kids just keep having these legendarily bad days (still cleaning up the nail polish, Adam). Hey, in the grand scheme of things, my life is great, but I've just had a lot of random issues come up over the last few weeks that have made it harder. And expensive.

And then we got a letter from our landlord a few weeks ago. We never hear from our landlord. We pay the rent and keep quiet and that's that. I think we're pretty good tenants- we've been renting for 6 years and we've always been well-liked by our landlords. (To be fair, we've often rented apartments near some pretty bad tenants and so we always come off looking good. That's the master plan.) Anyways, we get a letter from our landlord and it says that they really like having us a tenants and that they want us to sign a longer lease (it's in our contract that we're supposed to go month to month when our lease ends in July). They also want to raise the rent and they also want us to give them another (significantly large) security deposit. We asked if we could just go to the month-to-month as planned and they said no- we have to sign another lease (and by informing us super-early they have invoked a loophole in our contract) or get out. And we have two weeks to decide, which apparently is generous.

So...

That was a little awkward. We like our place. We've been happy here, but we're not willing to commit to another lease, especially when our landlord is apparently bat-shiz. We would stay longer, but we would like a little more space to grow into. We're actually in a relatively small townhouse. It fits our needs really well right now, but we've never seen it as our long-term destination and since we have no plans to leave the area, we thought we might need to look for something that could fit our needs for many years. (ie- We might like to have another child someday and there's not much room for one here unless we want them to sleep in the ant-infested bathroom, which Avery totally did do in California, minus the ant part.) Our original plan was to go to a month to month contract and start putting feelers out there and deciding where we want to settle and decide if we want to (gulp) buy.

We've thought about buying, but buying is scary. I know owning some land is the American Dream, but I honestly have no problem with renting. I like being able to call someone if there's something wrong with the house and not have to pay for it. I get a pretty big knot in my stomach when I hear the word "mortgage." (And why is it spelled like that??) I still have only a vague idea what "equity" means, but I definitely know what "foreclosed" means. I have a large fear of making bad financial decisions and I really think that's because of the film they showed in USU's family finance class where this girl killed herself because of credit card debt. (We got our first credit card a few months ago and I still stare at it uneasily, like it's the Ring of Power or something.)

But yes, we've thought about buying, and we've thought about it a lot lately. We learned about financing. We scouted neighborhoods. We looked at listings. But we wanted some time. We wanted to do it right. It's one of the most important decisions of your life and we take that seriously. Jeff, in particular, doesn't take important decisions lightly. He agonizes over them and considers every angle over and over again v e r y s l o w l y. I adore that about him- I mean, I'm always fine if he'd get a move on- but he takes serious things very seriously and I think that's a wonderful trait to have.

So here we were, essentially being forced out (FYI- I think the landlord wants to sell our place. There has been a lot of erratic behavior and I really think that's her plan) and we either had to choose to find a bigger place to rent in Reston ( which usually is about several hundred more a month) or buy a place a little farther west (a few hundred less a month) and so we took the western- leap. We got pre-approved for a loan (though talking to our lender gives me hives- she really intimidates me) and got a realtor. And then we jumped into the northern Virginia real estate market, which is a little like jumping into an expensive river.

Firstly, when we say "buying a house," we mean buying a townhouse, because we're not gazillionaires. I can't speak for all of Northern Virginia, but in this area, there's somewhat of a bit of a dearth of affordable starter homes. There often isn't much available between a nice townhouse and $700,000 4 bedroom single-family house- this isn't always the case, but it sure is frequently this way. (And honestly, townhouses and condos are often that much. A 3 bedroom townhouse down the street from us just sold for $800,000.) I realize that to my friends out west, it seems like such a step down from a single family home, but townhouses are practically the norm here- they're everywhere and they're pretty spacious and they're usually very nice communities. I love townhouses. I can say completely honestly, that I have no desire to live in a single-family right now. I don't want to deal with the yard and I like the community-feel of townhouses- I love having people around. 90% of my non-familial social interactions right now are doing chalk drawings with the neighbor kids and telling this one kid that Adam can't play right now so get off our lawn chairs. (That last part is fictional, but desired.)

Secondly, buying any real estate here is quite frankly, completely bonkers. Imagine this- a listing pops up that you are interested in. It just came on the market yesterday! You call your realtor. Oh, it's under contract. Oh, this happens again and again and again and again. I feel like a bit of a veteran in buying townhouses in our price range and I can tell you this with absolute and utter confidence- if a place is on the market for over 2 weeks, there is something weird about it or plain old wrong with it. It might not be something big- maybe just a small bedroom or a strange loft, but there is something there. (The 2 weeks cut-off is a little generous, honestly, I think the judgement applies to places on the market longer than one week as well. Most things that we looked at over the last few months sold in 2 or 3 days.) So basically, if you see a listing that you like, you need to visit it immediately and you need to put an offer on it within the next hour or two. You have to make one of your biggest life decisions as soon as possible, and you do so after having spent 15 minutes in the place. We put offers on two places- we waited a few hours with the first one and someone else offered first and offered more. With our second offer, we walked to our cars and sat down on the grass with our realtor and signed papers.

And so, we bought a house.

(Of course there is so much more to it than that- there was a lot nervousness, joy, uncertainty, sadness, kindness and generosity going on as well. Buying a house sort of was like going through the whole spectrum of human emotions for me.)

Our house. I'm surprised at how well that blurring app worked. I actually know what those numbers are and I really can't see any of them when I look at this picture. Also, it has another Kwanzan cherry tree! I love the one in front of our house- I think it's the most gorgeous thing ever and it seriously took me months to find out what type of tree it was, which is not relevant, but true.

This is the view from our deck.

Adam and Avery on the deck. The prior owners have kids, obviously

There are 2 dining areas, which is completely beyond our needs, so we need to figure out what to do with the space.

It's got a really nice kitchen.

The kids and Grandma Carr in the living room.

Adam demanded we take selfies while we signing paperwork.

That bath!

The master bedroom is really lovely.

This is the room that Adam called dibs on. Jokes on you, kid. You guys will still share.

I really don't have very many pictures of the house, but I do have a video. I wasn't going to post my video of it in case it fell through and to be respectful of the previous owners, but we close on Thursday and there are (blurry) pictures online of the house with all of their furniture and things (and I'm pretty sure they've moved some of it out already when these videos were taken), so I think it's ok.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLp6ltfaduU&feature=youtu.be

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0EYHz1VFkk&feature=youtu.be

There are so many things that we like about our new house. It's beautiful- I never thought I'd live in a house that nice. It's in great shape and in a lovely little neighborhood. There is a massive, sheltered community yard that I really like. We also have the space to possibly build a fenced yard, but it'd be tiny, so I don't really see the point at this juncture. There is a playground and basketball court in the townhouse community, but we're also within easy walking distance of a huuuge park and Adam's future elementary school. We also are in easy walking distance of the grocery store and a shopping plaza. (This might not be well-known, but I really really like walking places. Walking is really the only exercise I do and when I had PPD, walking really helped with that. I mean, Zoloft helped more, but being outside has always lessened any depression I've ever had. I've been able to walk to the grocery store at the last few places that we've lived and I was afraid I'd have to give that up when we moved, but honestly, our new place is really just an all-around increase in walk-ability, so that's cool.) Anyway, it's a great little house (an end-unit!) with great features and a really great location. But...

People keep asking me if I'm excited and I definitely am, but really this move is so bittersweet. I like Reston and I like our neighborhood and I like our ward and I'm pretty sure we just moved. There are so many people I'd like to keep in touch with, but we all know that's pretty hard to do sometimes. I have hated telling people that we're moving because it's hard to tell someone about this new and exciting thing when it basically means you won't see them all too much anymore. It just feels like such a betrayal and I know that's a ridiculous thing to say and that I sound like I put too much stock in how much people like me, but it's more just that people were really nice and welcoming and I feel so guilty to be leaving after only spending a year here because we have been happy here.

The second thing that makes it bittersweet is that Jeff will have a longer commute. That's not the biggest thing in the world- almost everyone in this area has a long commute and at least Jeff doesn't work in the District. People do some crazy commutes around here and it just seems so sad. We live about 10 miles from where Jeff works and it takes him about 45 mins. His new commute will be about an hour, maybe a little more. It's not my favorite thing in the world. I mean, I'll be fine with it, but I want him to be happy and commuting that long really seems awful. We have a couple of things that work in our favor though- Jeff finds his current commute pretty pleasant (it's time to himself and time to listen to audio-books and NPR... zzzzzzz... sorry, I just fell asleep thinking about how boring NPR is) and Jeff is able to go in at anytime, so he can get to (and leave) work pretty early, thus avoiding much of the major traffic. Hypothetically.

Anyway, this post is terribly long and I really just want to finish it so that I feel a little more caught-up on the blog. We close on the house on Thursday (cleared for closing!) and move on Saturday.

And I guess this means we're grown-ups now?

Birthday Baby/Toddler/Sob

2014-04-09T21:36:00.002-06:00

It's that time of the year- the time when I dust off the old blog to spotlight a birthday child! Saturday was Avery's 2nd birthday and I have to say, she's gotten so darn cute that I can hardly stand it. Sometimes she'll be ridiculously adorable and Jeff and I will just look at each other and roll our eyes with slight exasperation because her cuteness is just OUT OF CONTROL.

I mean, seriously???

There are so many things I could tell you about our Avy. Lemme get some bullet-points together.

Avery is SMART. Holy cow, I don't even know what to do with her sometimes. I think what always surprises me is that, with Adam, most everything he knows he knows because we taught him. Avery just picks up stuff and it sometimes really freaks me out how naturally intelligent she is. Recently, I was in the car with the kids and I was quizzing Adam on some phonics, so I asked him what words start with P. Before he could answer, Avery jumped in and was like "Puppies! And piggies!!" I just was flabbergasted and turned back and looked at her and she said, "Mickey start wit M." I'm not saying that she has that business down (at ALL), but she does frequently walk around practicing the sounds letters make, and I'm always like, "OK, you're a baby. Go somewhere and drool, don't tell me what words start with Z." I don't know where she picked all of this up, but somewhere she learned all of her letters, numbers, counting (I've heard her go up to 18, though 12 is her norm), colors, shapes and recently she's started writing some letters. She's pretty bright- I thought about getting her a MENSA card, but she keeps pooping on the floor, so...

Avery and her purple Q- the first letter she ever wrote. "I did it! It's Q!"

If you're suddenly filled with the desire to come and converse with this genius child, let me be clear- she probably won't talk to you. She usually saves her genius for me, which is fine because I have to hear her say "Holdmeholdmeholdmeholdme" all day long. Avery's funny. I don't even know how to describe her socially. Frequently, she's really talkative and friendly. She was telling this random lady at the store today about her birthday and her "Mee-mode" cake (That's her word for mermaid) and the lady was smitten, but about a week ago we were at the indoor playground at the mall and she refused to play and instead would just yell at the kids who she thought were running too fast or who came too close to her. She can be a bit mercurial, or at least is generally a little less happy-go-lucky than Adam. I think she also gets uncomfortable in situations where she thinks that I might leave her. (Author's edit: I felt like I was maybe being too hard on her and then I spent a few days parenting her. She can be difficult.)

Yelling at the kids.

Avery is small. Or at least, that's one of the most frequent comments I hear from people. "She's so small and dainty!" Avery gets called dainty a lot. (Please remember, she does poop on the floor an awful lot.) She is small- under 22 pounds and in the 11th%, but that really doesn't seem all that bad when you look at her genetics and 28 pound brother.

I still wear Avery a fair amount. Like I said, she's not that heavy. Adam prefers to walk most of the time and if he's walking and she's alone in the double stroller, things get gnarly. She loves walking, but is a pleasant combination of being super-slow and a firm refusal to follow. I can usually convince her to go in the Ergo if I know that Adam wants to walk. It's fun. She gives my back hugs and kisses.

Avery's favorite food is pizza. She loves pizza. She also really likes steak, toast, carrots, applesauce, cereal, Greek yogurt, fruit snacks and eggs, which she calls "eggies." She really likes all meat, (she strangely calls meat "meep."), which makes dinner interesting because she usually will eat more of the meat parts of meals and avoid veggies, whereas Adam is violently the opposite.

She also likes sandwiches.

Avery loves her Bear. My kids both have beloved stuffed animals, and Ducky is oft discussed, but Bear (pronounced Bee-air) is a pretty strong contender. She makes Bear talk a lot (Bear has a super high voice) and if she's hungry or stinky, she'll blame it on Bear. Me: "Hey, Avery, do you need me to change you? Are you stinky?" Avery: "No. Bear stinky." Bear: "Bear stinky."

Avery and Bear had matching tiaras for her birthday. This is a sweet picture, because Jeff was gone for a couple of weeks (a pleasure cruise throughout the former Yugoslavia- or something like that) and he came back on her birthday.

Speaking of bodily-functions, Avery keeps begging me to potty-train her. Whenever Adam says he needs to go, she says "Me tooo! Need to go potty!!" Sorry, Avy- not going to happen. I know how frequently you pee and they don't make underwear in your size.

It is hard saying no to that face.

She calls herself Avy, Sister, and Piggy.

She loves getting her hair and nails done and likes to pretend to put make-up on. I sorta hate doing her nails- she wipes them off and then gets mad when they come off- but I usually enjoy doing her hair. She does a pretty good job sitting still if I give her Mr. Potato Head. She loves Mr. Potato Head even more than being girly.

She loves wearing MPH's glasses.

Avery loves animals. She adores going to the zoo and her absolute favorite thing in the world is to watch Bao Bao's (the baby panda at the National Zoo) live webcam stream. She talks about Bao Bao dozens of times a day and still brings up daily the time that a chick pooped on my jacket. She seriously just talks about animals all day long. Her favorites are pandas, piggies, and elephants.

As seen in the above video, she has the most adorable way of saying some verbs in the past tense. I'm such an enabler and do it too. She says things like "hit-ted, pet-ted and ride-ded" all the time. It's so charming.

She still talks about when she ride-ded the pony.

She is such a sweet girl. She's just always worried about if other people are sad, maybe even obsessively sometimes. We watched Cinderella a few days ago and she still keeps asking what happened to Cinderella to make her sad. (Apparently she doesn't remember that it has a happy ending). "What happened to Cinderella?? Cinderella cry. Cinderella time-out?" She constantly worries about Adam's welfare, and brings him things that she thinks he wants (she is usually incorrect). Avery is just so sweet and caring and it's my absolute favorite thing about her.

This is her new stuffed panda. Ok, it's actually Adam's, but he decided that it wasn't big enough for his liking (um, ok?) and so Avery has adopted him. She named him Oliver, which is the name of my family's dog, who does not look like a panda.

Avery loves the Disney Princesses. I really don't know where the obsession sprung from. I mean, I like Disney movies, but we really seem to watch a lot more of the Pixar ones (due to Adam being more vocal in our movie choices). She is just crazy about the Little Mermaid and has seen it twice. When I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she immediately (and adamantly) decided she wanted princess things, so that was our theme. (And by theme, I mean that she basically just wore a tiara and had a cake with some princesses.)

OK, getting that cake was a TRIAL. The bakery lost my order and told me that I was crazy and didn't know the difference between ordering cakes and asking about ordering them. They were seriously so rude that I cried- especially since it was the lady that I had ordered the cake from two days ago (and who had no recollection of me or my order at all) yelling at me, telling me that I was a liar and to go find my mythical order form. I went home and got my copy of my order form and got the manager. I feel like there's a good chance that she spit in it, but the cake (and flowers, and balloons and ice cream) was free. And Avery adored it, which is what matters. She started crying when they told us that they wouldn't make her princess cake. Seriously, that lady was the worst. She didn't even apologize when I proved that she lost my order, she was basically just like, "Wait here for a half hour and I'll make your stupid cake." Her meanness has made my ensuing trips to Safeway quite awkward, as I can no longer walk past the bakery department.
Ugh. And now she's stolen my blogging time.

Her favorite thing in the world might be carousels. She adores them and is quite put out when they inevitably are over, usually so much so that I try to avoid letting her see them at all.

Adam is quite lukewarm about carousels.

Avery, I'm really tired, so I need to go to bed (you haven't been sleeping well, remember?). Thank you for the last two years, they have been wonderful. I have to admit, a few nights ago I laid in bed and cried (your dad did too- I'm totally outing him) about you growing up too fast. It is really one of the cruelest parts of life to watch children grow and change when they already seem perfect to you. Hey, I know that I harp on you for your undiscriminating use of screeching and I know that it'd be cool if you wanted to lay off on asking me to hold you, but Little A, you are still just perfect to me. Your beauty, intelligence, and sweetness are a strange combination of overwhelming and miraculous. You are my daily proof of the Divine.

I wouldn't have you any other way, screeches and all.

RECAP!

Zero

One

Two!!

Carr State of the Union

2014-02-19T22:11:00.001-07:00

(I thought I'd write a little Carr State of the Union- in honor of the real SOTU a few weeks ago that I didn't actually watch because I hate how mean the opposite parties behave during the speech. This seems to be an issue for me, regardless of the political affiliation of the President. It just makes me really uncomfortable. Is that what it's like when the two parties have to be in the same room? It's like the friggin Sharks and the Jets, but so much less dance-y. Anyway, on to my speech/blog. Also, know that I don't intend to proofread this. Thank you.)

All of the sudden, we're in a New Year (or apparently 1/6 of the way though it already) and I thought I should update the blog. Despite my last post literally being about how I almost died in 2013, 2013 was still one of the very best years of our lives. We knew all year about Jeff's dream job offer, and the hopefulness and gratitude that accompanied that really flavored the rest of the year. We were able to spend a lot of the year with our families and we actually traveled a near-freakish amount (15 states in 6 months) and even knocked everything off our California bucket-list. Here's some of my favorite 2013 moments.

Exploring the Tetons with Jeff for our 5th anniversary and listeninng to Mindy Kaling's "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?" was pretty much what happiness is.

This was the night that I got Appendicitis, but nonetheless, exploring the District at night was really lovely.

One day we just hopped in the car and went to Yellowstone with Cindy and Amy and it was just perfect. I loved it so much. I want to spend some legitimate time in Yellowstone. I can't believe how many different and cool things are in one park.

Our trip to New York was the kind of trip that Adam still brings up frequently. He would not stop talking about it today, in fact. I asked him what he wanted to do in New York and he told me, "Watch TV. They have TVs there."

The day we randomly drove to Annapolis was just a happy day- I love when we are spontaneous.

The time we went to Bear World and a deer bit Jeff and Adam.

Our spontaneous trip to Big Sur was one of my favorite days of my life. I feel like I've seen some cool things, but this remains the most beautiful.

Our last trip to Santa Cruz was especially fine.

The family trip to Vegas was wonderful.

Jeff took me on a boat ride around the bay for my birthday and it was a blast.

Muir Woods was beautiful and also significant because it was the last thing on our California bucket-list.

There are a ton more, but it takes me years to put pictures on the blog, so you'll have to take my word that we had some other nice moments last year.

I still feel sad when I think about saying goodbye to California (and the wonderful people there), but we're enjoying the DC area. Honestly, just seeing how happy Jeff is professionally makes it worth it. Also, I'm super pumped to explore the East Coast some more. I've got a bit of a Virginia bucket-list adding up and I'm getting anxious to make a dent in it. Winter has not been conducive to my travel plans or anything in general except making me miss California so terribly much.

2014 is strange so far. I feel like 2013 had so much momentum and I wish I knew how to continue that. I always have to feel like I'm moving towards something or I get depressed. I know I can't be alone in that. I guess I better nip my wee little quarter-life crisis in the bud. I'll let you know when I figure out how. Anyway, let us move on with the CSOTU.

JEFF:
Jeff is doing well. He finished some training that was closer to home and now his commute increases a fair bit. He listens to a lot of NPR on the commute, so he always comes home and says things like "I heard on NPR..." and I say things like: "Uggggggghhh." I get the merits of NPR. I acknowledge them. But what I need from the radio is the ability to not make me fall asleep while I am driving and a radio station that is dedicated to monotone voices just doesn't keep me awake. Jeff likes it, however and that was the original point of this now-pointless paragraph.

Jeff loves his job. He gets to do a lot of cool things, including some travel. An upcoming trip of his will be about 2 weeks and I am already going insane. He was away for a week and I nearly burst into tears when he came home. Apparently I DO need a man to make me happy. Sorry, Feminism. Sometimes I suck.

He also seems to be into the Olympics more than any other person alive, which is impressive. He also has been working on writing letters with Adam and they are just so adorable about it. He also keeps choosing to read really boring books and I enjoy watching him fall asleep reading- it's one of his most endearing habits. He also wrote me the most romantic letter ever for Valentine's Day and snuck out after a blizzard to buy me flowers. He does the dishes every night and is always down for whatever foreign television show I suggest we watch and spent 3 hours digging our cars out of the snow and he listens to me as I tell him about blind gossip items and the politics in Mexico and I listen to him as he tells me about politics in Russia and that Jimmy Fallon apparently did a good job on his first night of the Tonight Show. And the guy knows grammar better than anyone in world, but he doesn't care a jot that I just made a terribly long run-on sentence.

I predict that good things will come to Jeff this year because he is a good thing.

SARAH:

Sarah fell down the stairs today. She just keeps falling down the stairs because she keeps putting up festive garlands on the railing and apparently her desire to not mess up the 1.00 dollar heart garland is higher than her desire to survive, because, as I said, she keeps falling down the stairs. Her phone was broken in the fall, but covered by warranty which frankly, seems silly.

Sarah got new glasses. Her last pair was left on the counter by herself and then moved to the table by Jeffrey, who was cleaning the counter. Avery proceeded to climb atop the table and within seconds had pulled the glasses apart. Sarah's last pair of glasses suffered a similar fate when Adam was a baby. Heavens, Sarah's portion of the Carr State of the Union has been only focusing on things that kind of reflect badly on her (ie, the inability to keep glasses safe and the inability to not fall down the stairs).

Sarah lost of bunch of weight recently. She really shouldn't mention it, because it has been a completely random thing and doesn't really reflect well on her either. She now weighs as much as she did when she got married, but the weight loss has been really silly in that it has mostly been in non-flattering areas, like the chest and legs, but not the stomach. She fancies that she looks a bit like a Sneetch.

And thus ended the Sarah portion, she feels like she really needeth not linger on the parts on her, since she is the author of this blog and an incurable narcissist, and is likely to throw bits about her in the other sections.

ADAM:

Adam is better than cheese whiz. As he has grown up, he has turned into such a happy, reasonable and bright little guy. He still loves geography and just a few days ago proclaimed that Japan was a state near China, which is incorrect, but still cool. He also has recently declared a desire to visit France, Russia, and Mozambique. He just loves traveling and general adventures and is such a good addition to the team.

He still doesn't eat, though. Oh my. It is such a struggle to get him to eat anything, even things he likes. Today it took him forever to eat some cereal and this is with me constantly reminding him to eat. He eventually ate about three bites and I got frustrated and then I apologized and he said "I'm sorry you lost your temper too," which he really seems to think is the right thing to say- he's so earnest when he says it. Feeding and his hyperactivity and him shouting at Avery and how much television we should watch are the only sore spots between us. It sounds like a long list, but we're usually pretty cool. Also, I don't like it when he does naughty things and blames it on Ducky. "I know that you control him!!"

Adam wrote his name all by himself yesterday and recognized the words "up" and "big" by sight today, which made me happy. He loves to sing and does a fine rendition of "Edelweiss" and "Just the Way You Are." He is excited for spring and for the snow to melt, even though he loves playing in it. Everyday when we walk outside, he declares the day to be something. "It's a nice day" or "It's a wacky day." He says the word "wacky" more than the average person because he is really fond of the obscure Dr. Seuss book, Wacky Wednesday. It takes forever to read and there is a picture of a butt in it, if you were curious.

AVERY:

Avy continues to turn into a kid. I really like kids, but it squeezes your heart a little tight when your baby makes the leap. She has a pretty good grasp of talking, but is also teeny-tiny, so people sometimes freak out when they hear her. I don't mean to give the impression that she's a genius, but she speaks relatively well and is especially proficient at pleasantries. I've had a cold and whenever I sneeze or cough, regardless of where she is in the house, I hear this little voice say, "Bless you, Mommy." I always say, "Thank you, Avery" and she either responds with "Thank you, Mommy," or "You're Welcome, Mommy." Only one is correct, but both are adorable. She speaks in (short) sentences and randomly taught herself how to count and she's doing well at the ABC's too. She is a bright little thing and it is completely a reflection on her.

She is also a sensitive little thing. She still usually bursts into tears if I walk out of a room. She screams. A lot. All day long I hear her say "Hold yooouuuuuu! Hold meeeeeee!" If I shower during the day, I have to shower with her. She will not abide me doing that alone. I will try to turn on something really enticing on the TV and sneak up stairs and turn on the shower. I can hear her, 2 stories up, with the shower running, screaming. So I usually just put a non-slip mat in the shower and she sits and watches me shower. I know, it's awful. She always tries to turn the water colder and grab my razor and I think, "Is this truly living?"

I feel like I could tell you a host of stories about Avery that would make her sound pretty iffy, but the truth is, most everyone who meets Avery instantly adores her. She is frequently super pleasant and charming and always very cute. She has just so many people who thinks she is the bee's knees. The sad fact of the matter is that she saves most of her difficult behavior for me. So not only do I have to deal with it, nobody believes me. It's like the Twilight Zone episode where this guy sees a gremlin on the plane and people think he's certifiable. Avery is frequently a difficult child, but she is always beloved. She is kind and concerned and so curious about life and she brings me so many moments of heart-stopping joy. She just also brings me some moments of eardrum-piercing screams. C'est la vie with toddlers- I still kind of love it.

That's all you get tonight, folks. It is midnight and Jeff has been waiting to tell me something about our church calling (we're on the stake PR committee) all night and I've been like, "Uhhhh, wait till I'm done blogging." Sorry to Jeff and the fellow committee members. My stalling was pretty intentional.

Ok, so we let the kids try on my glasses. I KNOW that I just wrote about how the kids have broken my all of glasses, but it's KIDS in GLASSES. I cannot resist that.

KIDS IN GLASSES!

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Recovery Room

2013-12-27T00:41:00.000-07:00

About 2 weeks ago, I got Appendicitis. It was really sudden- it just popped up after we had an amazing day. It really was one of those postcard days. Jeff had a snow day and we frolicked around and then later, once it had melted, went into the District and had a great time. Then we put the kids to bed and caught up on Scandal ("Wait! Why are they making out? Doesn't she still think he killed her mom?? Ughhhh.") and I ate a bunch of cookies. We got ready for bed and then, suddenly, my stomach hurt. I thought it was because of all of the cookies.

It was a weird night. The pain woke me up once or twice, but mostly I just had a bunch of dreams where I kept telling people how badly my stomach hurt. When it was morning, I burst into tears when Jeff said he had to go to work. Luckily, that conveyed my message well and he stayed home. I figured out that it was Appendicitis by about noon. Before that, it felt like that moment where you have really terrible gas cramps, but there wasn't actually any gas or movement, just constant pain around my belly button. I started to really figure out what it was when I found out that you can't actually have gas pains without any gas for 12 hours and when the pain started to move to my right side. So I went to my doctor and he basically just looked at me hunched over in pain and said "You have Appendicitis." He was right, and he seemed kind of annoyed as we waited for the blood tests (which indicated Appendicitis) and the CT scan (which showed that I had Appendicitis) because he already knew. It was all very textbook, I guess. That's what the surgeon said too. I went in for surgery that night and it went very smoothly.

And then...

I remember waking up in the dark (I guess that just means that my eyes were closed) and I remember not being able to breathe. I was coughing, but it was like I was choking on some water or something. There were a lot of hands all around me and they were sticking things down my throat and I remember wanting to fight them off because I thought that I'd be able to breathe if they would just get their freaking hands out of my mouth.

And then...

I woke up for real. There were a lot of people in the room. There was this intense breathing machine stuffed into my mouth. "What happened?" I asked Jeff this not because I actually thought anything had happened, but because I just sometimes get confused when I'm tired. "After the surgery, your lungs filled up with fluid and you stopped breathing. You're in the ICU. They think that there is something else that is wrong, but we're going to figure it out and get you better and I love you so much." I remember thinking that Jeff, who always seems like he loves me, REALLY seemed like he loved me a lot and I was sad that he was upset.

I kind of dozed in and out of a lot tests and doctors, but what really woke me up was this intense thirst. I have never been so freaking thirsty in my life. I didn't eat or drink anything when I was sick because you usually don't have an appetite at all with Appendicitis and then I couldn't drink anything before the surgery and so when I started feeling coherent, I kept begging for something to drink and the nurses wouldn't let me because of the type of ventilator that I was on. I don't even know what kind of ventilator it was (It wasn't a tube, though I had a tube earlier). All I know is that it went really far back into my mouth (and gave me these terrible blisters all over that still haven't completely healed) and that the nurses said that it was compressing the liquid out of my lungs.They told me I could have a sip of water if I could breathe without it. I readily agreed (I probably would have defected to North Korea if they would have given me water) and they took out the crazy ventilator and gave me a more reasonable one. I remember feeling like it all wasn't real until that moment- like there had been some mistake and my breathing was fine. But they took out the giant thing and all of the sudden- I couldn't breathe at all and I remember gesturing really urgently for the nurses to put the beast back in my mouth. That's how I knew something had actually happened to me- I hated that ventilator with everything in me, and realizing that I actually needed it to breathe was really jarring.

It's so strange how fast everything went. Doctors kept coming into my room and checking how much fluid they had drained out of my lungs (last count we heard was 2 liters) and eventually they tried again and I was put on a more reasonable ventilator and I got to finally drink and eventually I learned more about what actually happened.

What actually happened? Nobody really knows. After the surgery, the surgeon told Jeff that it went fine and to go to sleep. Then, about a half hour later, the recovery nurses called him and told him that something had happened and that he needed to come downstairs immediately. I can't completely give an accurate account of what really happened downstairs because 1). Jeff very obviously was in shock and 2). He doesn't really like to talk about it. I know that there was a flurry of activity around me as they tried to get me to start breathing. I know that the doctors and nurses didn't speak to Jeff in the normal, clinical tones. They were calm, but they were extremely concerned about what the outcome would be and they voiced this to him. I know that me dying was always a concern, but that the more likely concern was brain damage. I know that the time that I wasn't stabilized were the worst moments of Jeff's life and my heart just burns when I think about how those few hours must have been for him. I wish I could take them away.

In the end, I learned that I had something called Acute Respitory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). My lungs filled up rapidly with fluid (Flash Pulmonary Edema) and things were extremely crazy for an hour or two. The stats for ARDS are pretty grim. About 1/3 people who have it die and a fair bit who survive have some sort of permanent damage, either to their lungs or brain. I seem to be fine. I coughed up blood for a few days (it was very Moulin Rouge) and I still feel like it's hard to take very deep breaths, but I am fine. My heart is fine. My brain is fine. The doctors do not know why this happened to me. It could possibly happen again if I have surgery, but I'm basically going to try to never do that again. Fingers crossed. At least we know that my appendix won't be an issue anymore. I've got my eye on you, gallbladder and tonsils.

After I had gotten the beast-ventilator out, I got on Facebook and mentioned that this all had happened (I know how stupid that sounds- but sometimes when crazy things happen to you, you figure that people would like to know. You figure that since they like your status on Harry Potter, they probably would like to know that you're on a ventilator in the ICU.) and after I had updated my status, I realized that it had only been 12 hours since the surgery. I felt so strange to know that there I was, able to update Facebook on my progress a mere 12 hours after the life-threatening event itself. I have so many mixed feelings on all of this, moments where I look back and think that it wasn't' a big deal, that it couldn't have been a big deal because it was all over so fast. That it wasn't a big deal because I recovered quickly. That it wasn't a big deal because I know of worse things that have happened to others. That it wasn't a big deal because a few of my friends and family didn't really seem to think so. That is wasn't a big deal because I am alive and I am fine now.

But it was a big deal to me.

It's a strange feeling, to wake up and be told that you almost died. To hear that from your distraught husband, and later from doctors. I feel so very, very shaken. It was so random and without any reason- how can I feel safe? How can I go to sleep every night without a small part of my brain wondering if I won't wake up? That doesn't just happen to people, right? But it did happen to me, and there was no medical reason for it, so yes, I feel so very afraid. I'm sure that feeling will go away, but for now, I'm trying to just accept that being anxious about it all is probably a normal reaction and just another reminder that my mind works well and that I am alive. I am alive.

I keep thinking back to the moments before the operation. The last thing I remember is saying goodbye to Jeff. I was pretty calm about the whole surgery until right before they took me away and I asked a nurse if Jeff and I could pray. I wanted her to give us some space; I wanted Jeff to give me a Priesthood blessing, but she just grabbed our hands and prayed with us. The last thing I remember is saying goodbye to Jeff and this sassy nurse saying, "Honey, you know that Jesus is gonna be in that operating room." She was so sure. I'm grateful for her- her faith was inspiring. (She was also apparently a comfort to Jeff before I was stabilized, and for that she will be forever in my heart.) I keep thinking about her words. "Honey, you know that Jesus is gonna be in that operating room." The way that she said them reminds me of how my doctor said "You have Appendicitis." He was so sure, and he was so right.

I think she was too.

An hour or two before the stomachache.

Getting pumped for surgery.

My kids visiting in the hospital.

Feeling much better, 2 weeks later.

The Carrs Take Manhattan

2013-12-06T21:37:00.001-07:00

If you don't know that I stole my title from The Muppets Take Manhattan, then we are not friends anymore.

I feel like I should blog about our trip to New York. It was a great trip and even though I like to take pictures of some of the cool things we do, I have a hard time just sitting down and talking in detail about them, because well, who likes that? But I keep having this fleeting thought that Adam will probably remember this trip (isn't that a lot of pressure, when your children get to the age where you can legitimately scar them?) and I'd like to sit down and make some sort of record about it because I will never scrapbook (pulpuslaceratapohobia) and I forget everything. I seriously forgot which side I part my hair the other day- I'm still not sure I made the right choice. (Also, the paper cuts thing is a joke. I will never scrapbook because I can't cut in a straight line.) (Also, that is true, but also a joke. I will never scrapbook because I don't want to.)

Jeff's uncle has a place in Manhattan (I feel very posh just writing that) and a few months ago as we were preparing to move, there was some talk of spending Thanksgiving there, but nobody (including Jeff's parents) seems to remember said discussion and so we had no Thanksgiving plans. We've had Thanksgivings far away from family several times, but this year felt lonelier than usual and we like adventures, so with Uncle Greg's permission, we decided to go up by ourselves. Jeff and I have spent a good little bit in the city, but we have never taken the kids, so this was a big deal for us. We were pumped and then...

I got my usual affliction of feeling really blue about being away from family over the holidays. I grew up far away from family and so I do really have this intense desire for my kids to know all of their relatives well. But it's kind of a tall order to ask people to abandon their plans and fly across the country, so I was blue. I kind of brooded about this silently for a little while till I had the brilliant idea to invite my brother Tim to come. This was a good idea for several reasons- Tim, who probably wouldn't appreciate me characterizing him as super wealthy to a bunch of people on the internet, at least does well-enough to afford a plane ticket and secondly, my mother always seems sort of relieved when people drop out of her Thanksgiving dinner because I really do think she secretly wants to just go out to eat.

Tim said yes, and so we planned to meet him and his girlfriend, Katelin (who is totally wonderful, FYI) on Wednesday in New York. We thought about taking the train, but ultimately liked the freedom that driving would give us. The drive from Reston to Manhattan is supposed to be 4 1/2 hours. Can I just say-BAHAHAHAHA. It took us simply forever. I don't even want to remember the details. We drove to Trenton and thought we could just park there and take a simple ride into the city. Can I just say- BAHAHAHAHA. (Did you know that I am actually counting out how many "HA's" I write?) The train ride was the worst. It was an hour and a half (local train, not express) Avery had diarrhea and both kids just were close to losing it. But we made it- I'm only writing about it because I want to remember to NEVER DO THAT AGAIN. (Also, a few people who know me well will be interested to know that I drove all over the state of Delaware- a place I have been uneasy about since a dream I had as a young child. It was about a gorilla from Delaware. Ironically, no issues with gorillas have ensued.)

Greg has the best view of the Empire State building. It's just wonderful.

We got up early on Thanksgiving and went to the parade. I probably should mention that there are different levels of commitment to seeing the parade and we fell pretty low on the list. It was freezing that morning and we didn't really have the desire to camp out to get a good spot because well, we have kids and we're recently of California. But we did get a nice balloon-spotting vantage point near Macy's and Jeff and Adam stayed for the whole parade. Avery lasted about 20 minutes and so we walked back to the apartment and watched the rest on TV. Every few minutes she would shiver and say "No!" as she very obviously remembered standing outside. She does not seem to enjoy the winter, clever girl.

At the parade. Avery's face doesn't adequately express how downright mad she was for the whole thing.

Happier inside.

Coloring after the trauma.

I had no idea what we would do for Thanksgiving dinner. I only knew that I didn't want to cook. There are a ton of Thanksgiving dinners that you can order in the city, but apparently that's the kind of thing that you have to not wait till the afternoon of to order. Who knew? We ended up just walking to a really awesome little grocery store that we've been to on other visits here and they had a Thanksgiving buffet. Seriously, that was the best decision ever because it was 10 times better than I could have whipped up and we displayed it all on some fancy platters, so it felt more festive than the average deli. Also, we walked past a macaron shop and I legitimately freaked out and spent 20 bucks on 8 cookies. You do the math- I'll be too busy dreaming of macarons.

Pretty long list of things to be thankful for in this picture.

Delish.

For Thanksgiving dinner, Avery just chomped on an apple and colored Elmo. I was charmed by her manners.

After dinner, Jeff and Adam went with Tim and Katelin to see Time Square. He loved it, of course. I'm really bummed that Avery and I stayed home- I love Time Square. It is the biggest bunch of lights and crazies that you will ever encounter.

We took a bath instead.

I love the pure joy on his face and also the random pedestrian.

Friday was Katelin's birthday and we celebrated by going to the Empire State Building. Jeff and I have been to New York a few times and this is really one of the only big tourist things we haven't seen (that and Statue of Liberty- which I actually am dying to see and still eludes me). We really wanted to go because Adam loves big buildings and elevators and landmarks in general. And so we went and I've got to say that I'm not completely sure I'd recommend it. It's about 20 bucks per person (kids are free- hallelujah) and we waited in line for about 2 hours. I think if you're willing to spend the money on it, make sure you don't go on a holiday weekend because there were just so many people. The view, however, was incredible.

Oh, and yes, Avery fell asleep randomly at 10:30 in the morning while we were walking to the Empire State building, thus becoming sleep/dead Avy once more. People always have a lot of comments on this, and I forgot to answer the recent ones. When she does this, I usually try to hunch over so she looks more natural- it's pretty uncomfortable for me, but it's better than the alternative. There is a shade cover on the Ergo, and we used it a lot when she was a baby, but she doesn't like it now that she's older- I think she doesn't like to have fabric near her face, which I can relate to. She wakes up immediately when we put that on, so we usually just bear with sleep/dead Avy because she never sleeps that way for long. People do stare, but usually they just laugh. In New York, everyone was just really delighted by it. It's hard to explain sleep/dead Avy unless you've seen it with your own eyes, it's funny not only because she is randomly so out of it (and so dramatically), but also because she usually wakes up really happy and social. She's fine, don't worry. It's a very rare and short occurrence, since neither of my children are much for sleeping in public.

I was hoping she'd stay asleep for the whole time we were in line, but we were in line for a billion years.

Jeff and Adam at the top. Adam could recognize the Flat Iron building and Greg's building from up here. I tells ya, he's a landmark genius.

Pretty view of downtown.

Me and Avery uptown.

How she reacted when anyone else held her that morning.

How she was even when I held her that day. (Uncle Greg's apartment is the gold dome on the right.)

Adam probably wins the award for happiest person on the subway. He, like all little boys, loves mass transit.

.We spent the afternoon recouping and then went out again in the evening. Tim and Katelin went shopping on 5th while we decided to go much more upscale... FAO Schwartz. I love FAO Schwartz. I wish I could live there. The kids loved it too.

Avery stopped in the doll section for about 10 minutes and just yelled "BABIES" over and over in a really threatening voice.

They did the giant piano and adored it.

Neither of my children could set off the lights or notes very often because they are both ridiculously little.

This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip. I put a puppet on his hand after my very impressive show and he was really surprised that it didn't do anything. "Mom! Mine doesn't talk!"

This is Avery and I walking along Central Park. She looks disgruntled, but we took the picture because of how friggin delighted she was by the central park carriages.

We came back and Katelin blew out the candles on her huge red velvet cake and Adam took a slice down to the doorman, who he loved. "Hey! You're back! I noticed you were gone. I'm three and a half!" (A real conversation.)

Saturday was more mellow because Friday really took it out of us. We tried to go to the 9/11 memorial, but tickets were sold out, so we just walked around lower Manhattan. It was actually kind of fun. I like days like that. We saw Wall Street and Adam used the bathroom at Trinity Church and then we caught a pretty intense street performance at Battery Park. Also, Adam had this theory that a specific pigeon was following him the whole time and well, that was hilarious.

Adam and Katelin made a gingerbread house and she was just so good with him.

Avery and I walking around Bowling Green park after seeing the Bull of Wall Street.

She still was a little upset when anyone else would hold her.

But I guess she got over it.

The Statue of Liberty from Battery Park. Maybe next time?

That night, Jeff and I went out on a date, which was probably the real reason we invited Tim and Katelin along. (Haha!) It was so so so fun. Jeff adores the city, he just lights up when he walks around. I devised a date night that would combine a couple of different Sarah and Jeff things. We went to Greenwich Village (We've never been there before- exploring new parts of New York is a Jeff thing.) and saw the Friends house (or the exterior shots of a place that they show in Friends- a Sarah thing.) we wandered around Washington Square Park (and saw all of the chess tables- Jeff thing, but also a Sarah thing because they're the ones in Searching For Bobby Fischer and seeing things that are in movies is a Sarah thing) until we found a place to eat (a vegetarian soul-food and Asian fusion restaurant- trying new things is a Jeff thing), and then we went and saw Catching Fire (a Sarah thing, but also a Jeff thing, because he totally read them too). The time we wanted had sold out, so we wandered around a comic store (probably more of a Sarah thing, but they had a lot of Futurama memorabilia, which is a Jeff thing). We loved the movie and sauntered home very late. During the walk home we saw a drunk man fall over a bike rack and some rats, but it was still a pretty magical date.

Washington Square Park.

Friends house.

Sunday was just busy. We had a lot to do and getting home was a wee bit terrible and I was pretty darn tired and grumpy from literally carrying Avery all over Manhattan, so I'd like to block most of Sunday out. Except for the part where we got Shake Shack! That was delicious.

Also, it's in DC. Which is good, so very good, to hear.

Saying goodbye. Adam has such a soft spot in his heart for his Uncle Tim.

We are so grateful to Tim and Katelin, for spending all of this time with us and so grateful to Greg, whose continual kindness has set our children up with a lot of happy childhood memories to negate the one time this pigeon chased Adam around lower Manhattan.

Bullet-pointing our Lives

2013-11-12T22:14:00.005-07:00

I'm really tired of social media. You wouldn't be able to tell by my frequent usage of it, but I've got major Facebook-ennui (Hey, did you know that ennui is one of my favorite words ever? And did you know that I learned it from Gilmore Girls? Jeff says GG is unrealistically witty, but I says that it meks me brain smarter). Oh, you hate Obama? Oh, you love Obama? Oh, here's a picture of soldier doing something really great? Oh, here's a Bitstrip with you holding a hammer? All acceptable things for you to be doing on social media, but the thing that's got me down is that I don't actually feel connected to anyone. I feel like I can tell you what some of your opinions are or what recipe you want to share on your wall, but on the whole, I feel like I have no clue what is going on in your life. I'd love to sit down with people and just ask them, "Hey, how are you doing? But really, how are you doing? What is new?" Because there has to be more to your life than Candy Crush and I'd really like to have a sense of what that actually is. So I'll blog a little and tell you about what we are doing. No, really, what we are actually doing. And I'll use bullet points -- because I love them.

Adam took this picture. I think it's hilarious.

We potty-trained Adam, and it was really easy. That's because he's almost 3 1/2 and has been ready for a really long time. I just wasn't ready. Do you know what's really gross? Potty-training. And I'm talking about a really really successful potty-training experience -- we've had like 3 accidents total. Adam is an extremely small 3-year-old and so he needs a lot of assistance to get on the toilet or he just uses the little stand-alone. Either way, I feel like I'm much more involved in his bodily functions that I was when he wore diapers and I don't like it. But I guess it's a good thing, because everyone has to learn some degree of continence at some point. We also night-trained him -- or at least he always wakes up dry. One time early on, he did wake up crying "I need some M&M's!" and it took us a little while to figure out what the heck he was talking about but we eventually figured out that he needed to use the bathroom. At that point, we were offering him M&M's (3 M&M's, to be exact. Adam likes things in threes, because he is three and that is normal behavior) when he used the potty and so his cry for candy was in reality so much more.

We said we'd make him a sticker chart to help him learn to go potty, then he learned it in about a day and we forgot the chart. Finally remembered after he had completely gotten the hang of it, so he filled it up really fast. He earned a trip to Chuck E. Cheese's and Grandma and Grandpa Carr happened to be around.

I think it's pretty fair to say that Avery has hit the Terrible Twos or something. Actually, the twos were never all that bad for Adam, but I do remember just hating life for a few months when he was around 18 months. (Can you admit that you hated a stage of your child's life? Whooooops.) Anyway, I feel that way right now. She's a bit of a screamer. And she likes to lay on the ground a lot in protest when I take things away from her. I don't have the heart to tell her that I actually prefer her lying on the ground in protest to whatever hazardous substance she was trying to eat. I think 18 months is a tricky time -- I still think of her as a baby, but that's not really true anymore. And she understands every single thing I say, but she can't effectively communicate all of the time and she certainly doesn't listen to what I say and I just want to creepily swaddle her and feed her bottles and keep her little forever. Oh dear, I just Googled "adult swaddle" and it's a thing. Oh dear indeed.

But it's all good. I mean, just look at her. Girl be cute.

Jeff is loving work. It's really fun to see him so fulfilled professionally. He has already had some really cool experiences that I'm sure he'd love to tell you a little bit about. You should give him a call. Unless you don't actually know him that well -- then you'll have to hold up some sort of object to your ear and pretend to call him. Adam and Avery do that all the time. ("Hewwo? Daddy?" "Hi, Dad. This is Adam. I'm a baby bird. Bye, Dad.")

The boys in their foreign soccer shirts. Cute, but strange since we're not really soccer fans.

People sometimes ask us how long we'll be in Virginia and I'm never really sure how to answer. We're past the stage in our lives where each place we live is a temporary gig. Jeff's job is a good solid career and most people there seem to stay for their whole careers. So maybe we will be here forever, who knows? We love the West and we'd love to be close to family, but I mean, Jeff has a degree in Russian Studies and there are only a few areas in the country where you can really work in that field. Everyone automatically assumes he could just get a teaching job, but it's really not that easy or simple. Or in our current case, even desired. If the right stars align, we'd love to come westward ho. But really, Virginia is a nice place. Everything is green and history is everywhere. Also, we live in the suburbs, but we can easily access the country and a major city. We've always loved to explore new places and we feel the adventure potential just bubbling around here and honestly, we feel like we're the kind of people who would probably be OK living anywhere that is not too cold (my own requirement, Jeff adores cold places), so all is well. (But if I were to make a complaint about the DC area, it would be that all of the roads are twisty and confusing and I seriously laugh out loud when I hear people complain about traffic in Salt Lake because it once took me an hour and a half to go one mile on I-95 in the middle of the day and I don't even think anyone who lives in the area would be surprised to hear that. Also, now that all the leaves have fallen, we suddenly have a ton of neighbors and everything reminds me of "The Watcher in the Woods." And I really don't like being reminded of "The Watcher in the Woods.")

I know everyone loves fall, but I always feel like the world is dying. I've always liked spring more because every single year when I see things start turning green I feel like I've witnessed my own personal miracle.

Adam has been really hilarious lately. Seriously, I have loved the 3-year-old stage. He talks non-stop and I definitely tune him out sometimes, but he just says the most delightful/bizarre things. For example, tonight he said AND I QUOTE- 'I have this friend who pooped all over his family." Another recent gem was when he called for me: "Mom! Check this out! You've got to see this!" When I came into the room he was holding some Oxi-clean up and he was like: "It's Oxi-clean, Mom! It'll get all of the stains out of your shirts!" It was so funny because he was so enthusiastic and sincere about the power of Oxi-clean. Oh, he is so dear to me.

I mean, he does stuff like THIS. (They're clean, they're clean.)

Adam has been obsessed with baby birds for a couple of months. I don't where it came from; I don't know why. All I know is he talks about birds all the time. He's known for a while now that he wanted to be a baby bird for Halloween, and we knew he wouldn't change his mind -- that's how strong of a phase this is. We did have a bit of a struggle finding a baby bird costume that fit his standards of what a baby bird should look like, and we finally found a penguin costume on eBay that he loved -- just don't let him know that it's really a penguin. We had a hard time trying to think of a costume for Avy; it would have been nice to coordinate, and I really wanted to make her an egg costume, but then I remembered that I can't sew. So she was a piggy. It makes sense; she likes to make little piggy noises all of the time and it is super cute. Baby Bird and Piggy loved their costumes and still ask to wear them almost daily. And I let them.

On the Halloween train.
As previously mentioned, Jeff's parents came to visit. And for some reason that I feel has not been adequately explained to me, Jeff's dad and Sandra Day O'Connor have recently become buddies. Ok, they met at a women's conference that Steve was involved in. (The irony is not lost.) She hung out with Jeff's family in Sun Valley for a few days and went fishing and told Steve that she'd give him a tour of the Supreme Court next time he was in town. So they came to town. And so we met her and she gave us a tour. (I'm being nonchalant because this was a just a pretty regular day for me.) The Supreme Court is simply beautiful and I loved getting to meet her. She was very feisty and funny -- I always pictured her refined and elegant. And then I realized that I always thought of her acting like the queen of England which is pretty sexist/ageist of me, because I just automatically assumed that all women with white hair must act like the queen. (Sorry, Barbara Bush. Did it to you too.)

Jeff and I at the Supreme Court. I have a couple of pictures with Sandra Day O'Connor, but I didn't want to put them online without her permission. So you just get this picture, which is fine, but not great since Jeff is squinting and I think I look a little round for some reason. Not necessarily fat, just round.

My parents came to town too! It seems like so long ago, but I guess I haven't blogged about it (or anything). It was such a great visit -- we visited a bunch of Civil War sites, Amish country, and they stocked up our cupboard when it became clear that the shutdown would happen. I love having my parents around. I feel like all of my problems are solvable when they're nearby -- and honestly, watching shows at night with Mom and Jeff is one of my favorite things in the world. My dad doesn't watch with us -- he is usually doing some extra work or family history, but he comes in the room once in a while and rolls his eyes at whatever we're watching. This trip we watched a lot of How I Met Your Mother. My mother asked 5 seconds into the first episode of this show she has seen several times, "So... when does he meet the Mother?" I love you, Mom and Dad.

Dad and Adam at Harper's Ferry. They ran off together quite a few times that day.

We've been working on phonics a lot with Adam. It took a little while, but he's starting to get the hang of it. He probably knows about half of the sounds that letters make and he has started to be able to figure out what word we're making when we string some sounds together. He also (I hope I don't jinx this) has been able to recognize a few sight words recently. So that's cool. I feel like most the credit should go to his preschool teacher, because he has been much more receptive to learning since he has been doing that. He was quite gleeful yesterday when he realized that both "pee" and "poop" start with the letter P. Classy one, my boy.

He really does love reading. But we also read before bed, and I've always wondered if part of his desire to read so much is a stall tactic. Clever boy.

We survived the Shutdown. It was not fun -- we like to call it "the worst vacation ever." We're new to the job and the area, don't have much savings yet and so it was really scary for us to not have two whole paychecks. We always figured that there would be some sort of compensation eventually, but it was more of a "holy crap, what are we going to do RIGHT NOW?" situation. It began at the beginning of the month. We paid rent and then just bade our time. Jeff was supposed to stay in the area, just in case he got rotated in (some new people did), and it rained a lot of the time, and there was a mouse in our house. So we really just sat around and stared at each other for 2 1/2 weeks while I freaked out about the mouse. Eventually we were all so glum that we knew we needed to do something to boost family morale, so at the very end of it all, we drove up to Annapolis on a whim. That was really fun. Annapolis is a pretty little city and the Naval Academy was so cool. We stopped to see the Chesapeake, and it turned out be about 70 degrees and sunny that day (hooray!) so we all just played around in the water. Adam adored it -- which is really crazy because he hated the Pacific Ocean (he fell completely in once while wading and never forgave the sea). Avery also adored it, which is not crazy because she always has loved the ocean.

Luckily, it wasn't riddled with jellyfish, as per my last Chesapeake experience. Also, I wish you all could hear Adam say "Chesapeake."

Avery finally started walking at 18 months. Kind of. I don't know, she still crawls a lot. It's so weird. Sometimes I'll see her walk across the room and then she won't do it again for days. We see it more and more. She obviously can walk -- she just doesn't seem to want to do it all that much. She does talk pretty well, though. (I really only have Adam at 18 months to compare her to, and he wasn't saying anything back then.) She speaks in sentences sometimes -- she even said "Bye, Grandma and Grandpa" after we dropped Jeff's parents off at the airport. My absolute favorite thing that she says is "Happy!" She says it all the time when she actually is happy. And when we ask her who is happy, she gleefully shouts, "MEEEEE!" It's so cute, because she says it all of the time, but only when she actually feels the emotion. If she's sad and we ask her if she's happy, she'll tell us no. Jeff went and got Slurpees with the kids tonight (Because Adam for the last few days has been saying, "I'm so hungry. We need to go to 7-11.") and Avery got her own and all evening she was like "HAPPY! THANK YOU!"

Adam took this picture. Like I said, he's been really into doing that lately.

I feel like I should do a required bullet about me. I've been reading a lot, as per usual. I've been writing a wee amount, but nothing that I'm ready to acknowledge. I feel like I mop a lot. I got into a heated argument with Adam over whether it was Harry Pott-ER or Harry Pott-EN. I won because he doesn't know what he's talking about, but when you win a heated argument with a toddler, are you really a winner? I have developed a taste for Coke. I got Jeff to watch Scandal on Netflix and now it consumes us. (We also recently watched a British show called The Bletchley Circle and I really recommend it, especially if you like Call the Midwife, because it also takes place in post-war England.) I've been working out a wee amount, but I also probably shouldn't acknowledge that either, for it has been very wee indeed.

If you see any of my Instagram pictures, you might recognize sleep/dead Avy. We took a trip into DC yesterday and Avery fell asleep in the Ergo, but refused to remain in a comfortable position or even in any position that didn't make her look dead. So we took a couple of sleep/dead pictures and then had to cover her up because she was seriously making people uncomfortable. She woke up really happy, though -- she even told us so.

Hey, blog readers -- how are you? But really, how are you?? The thing is, I am not always the best at showing it, but I really do care about you. Even if we barely know each other, I hope things are well, I really do. Give me an update sometime, in whatever context you prefer. It can even be in a Bitstrip with you holding a hammer.

The Parable of the Toothbrush.

2013-10-09T11:39:00.000-06:00

If you have the time, I'd like to share with you what is quite possibly the most important lesson I've ever learned. Even if you don't "have the time," you should read it anyway, because I did just say it was the most important lesson I've ever learned. And you're already trolling my blog.

I like to call it The Parable of the Toothbrush, which is a totally awesome name, but possibly a misnomer. Maybe a better name would be Confessions of a Non-Night Brusher or Riding in Cars with Plaque. (You're getting really excited, aren't you??)

When Jeff and I got married, I didn't brush my teeth at night. I know, I know. Disgusting. Let's all be grossed out together and throw rocks at the girl with the rotten teeth. Maybe some will fall over like a Chuck E. Cheese game. (That really is a Chuck E. Cheese game, but you have a gun, and you shoot at a horse's mouth. I could play that game all day. Probably because it's super fun and a surprising ticket-earner.) But the reality is, I didn't have rotten teeth. I have had about 2 cavities ever and I did usually brush them twice a day, just in the afternoon as opposed to the evening. But despite the lack of consequences, I was well aware that what I was doing was gross. I just didn't feel the impetus to change my ways.

The original reasoning behind this dental atrocity was that I felt like I woke up with even grosser breath in the morning when I brushed right before bed. I still don't feel like that has been disproven, but let me get on with the tale. Jeff has excellent dental hygiene, but never chided or made me feel bad for my nasty quirk. He obviously noticed, because, as I've mentioned on the blog before, he always comes and waves at me while he brushes his teeth at night.

Here's the end of the story: one evening I was brushing my teeth at night and I stopped and looked at my toothbrush and realized that I brush my teeth at night. I realized that I've been brushing my teeth at night for years and I realized that was never a decision I made -- it just happened and I have no idea why or when it did. And I learned quite possibly the most important lesson that I've ever learned -- let's see if I can find the right words to tell you about it.

My life is a little bit stagnant right now. I spend the day focused on the kids, and I check the news and I read a book and I call my mom and I check the news again in my spare time. Jeff comes home. I make dinner, we put the kids to bed and watch a show or a movie together or I read in the bath and then I go to bed. There are definitely variations, but the formula to my life is pretty stagnant. Jeff is so much better than I at this kind of thing. (By "this kind of thing," I mean a well-rounded person.) He works at an exciting and fulfilling job, comes home to his family who all adore him like he was a cult leader or something, hangs out with me, and also spends some time reading literature (as opposed to books), writing, and learning a new language. He also finds time to clean up the house and do the dishes and maybe rescue kittens from trees.

It would be wrong to interpret what I'm saying as a call for help, or even an indication that I am unhappy. I have a very good life and I am glad that I've chosen to give so much of my time to my children. That is what I want to be doing right now. That doesn't mean that I don't have a ton of plans and dreams for when they are a little older, but at this second, I am doing what I have chosen and what I truly want. How many people are that lucky?? But the thing is...

My life is a little bit stagnant right now.

And I believed that that made ME stagnant right now.

But it's not true.

THAT is the Parable of the Toothbrush.

THAT is quite possibly the most important lesson I've ever learned.

Human beings are never stagnant. We are always learning lessons. We are always evolving. I don't care if you aren't where you want to be in life, you are moving somewhere. You are learning something.

I thought my life was on auto-pilot. I thought my time for growing as a person was on hold. But I looked at that stupid toothbrush, and I realized that I had reversed a years-long bad habit without noticing. I looked at my bed and I realized that somewhere along the way, I started making it and apparently I also started vacuuming. I looked at my children and I realized that all of the sudden I know a crapload about child development theories and childhood illnesses and basically everything that has the word "child" preceding it. I realized that I figured out how to keep Adam from screaming when I wash his hair and I realized that I've started to get reeeally good at doing Avery's hair as she is moving around. I realized that I hang out at night with my husband and we have an awesome time. I realized that I read a ridiculous number of books and that I know my current events backwards and forwards and I call my mother almost every single freaking day.

You there! Yes you. I want to grab you and shake you. This toothbrush was my Doc Brown moment. It was the moment I hit my head on the toilet and thought of the Flux Capacitor. And if you didn't get that reference, I'm gonna shake you even more!

Hey, freshly-shaken person. You might be living at home. You might be working at a terrible job. You might be going through a terrible time right now. You might not be able to list one good thing that you're doing with your life right now.

But The Parable of the Toothbrush is here to tell you that you just might not be able to see it.

And just because I am physically incapable of not posting a picture of my family. We've been getting a lot of time with Jeff- he started a mandatory training on Monday, September 30th. Being in training makes him "non-essential" as of October 1st, so we Carrs are shutdown.

The First Five Years.

2013-07-20T13:31:00.000-06:00

(The title of this post refers to the Laura Ingalls Wilder book, "The First Four Years." I am a big fan of the Little House books, and used to reread them every year until puberty, when I just would reread "Little Town on the Prairie" and "These Happy Golden Years", because those are the only ones with romance in them, but I did sometimes reread Little House in the Big Woods, because I liked when they'd make tree-sap candy. Wasn't there also a pig-bladder balloon? I also liked that.)

I've had a hard time blogging about our 5-year anniversary. I keep going back and forth between writing sappy things (I loved Jeff almost immediately) and funny things (I hate the way that Jeff eats fortune cookies.). Both things are true, but I'm having a hard time sticking to one theme. If I only blog sappy things,(Jeff Carr is everything I ever wanted in a husband) does that sound believable? If I only blog funny things, (Jeff clips his fingernails almost every day, but for some reason, his toenails are always as sharp as prison shivs. ) does that adequately illustrate how much I love him?

Marriage is a funny thing. It's different for everyone. I know couples who never fight and I know couples who fight constantly, but make up immediately and seem closer to each other after each little spat. There are many different ingredients that go into a successful marriage. I mean, I do believe that there are some universal recipes for success (strong commitment, same values and beliefs, and similar goals), but within that, there are many different variables that make up a marriage. I asked Jeff late one night around our anniversary if he thought we had a good marriage. It was completely a test (all good marriages should be comprised of one person who is prone to giving tests and one person who is prone to forgiving that testing person), but he passed by saying "yes."

We spent the next hour or so talking about our marriage's strengths and weaknesses. It was a nice conversation, but I didn't really get any "Aha!" moments from it. I think we have a successful marriage, but I also don't know what exactly a successful marriage is, so I never know if we're secretly failing. Do we fight? (Yes- about three things: money spent on root beer, not speaking in nice tones, and my inability to get Jeff to work even remotely on time.) Do we fight too much? (Only when I go through periods of root beer float addiction. Right now we're good.) Am I a good wife? (I just asked him and he got annoyed with my stupid question and answered "Yes." He then realized that I was testing him, and said in a much nicer tone, "I think you're the most wonderful wife in the world.") Is he a good husband? (Jeff Carr is an amazing husband and I am thankful for him everyday.) (He's very supportive of my love of McDonald's Monopoly, he always does the dishes, he never corrects my grammar even though he totally could be doing that every day, and he never makes fun of me when I wake up naked and have no clue where I put my clothes because I seem to sleep-walk when I get hot at night.)

But a little while later, I finally did have an "Aha!" moment. We were driving around Teton National Park on our anniversary trip, listening to Is Everybody Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling (loved it) and in it, she says:

"I don’t want to hear about the endless struggles to keep sex exciting, or the work it takes to plan a date night. I want to hear that you guys watch every episode of The Bachelorette together in secret shame, or that one got the other hooked on Breaking Bad and if either watches it without the other, they’re dead meat. I want to see you guys high-five each other like teammates on a recreational softball team you both do for fun. I want to hear about it because I know it’s possible, and because I want it for myself."

And we looked over at each other and smiled. She had just described us. Not because Jeff watches the Bachelor with me, actually watches with me, and makes fun of it when I want to, and listens to my serious points about it when I want to tell him. Or even because we do high-five each other an above-average amount. We smiled because after all this time, we are still buddies. (We really are best friends.)

We're not perfect, and our marriage wouldn't work if there were other people in it. (Who else would be able to listen to me say, "I feel like Bruno Mars is a bit of a twerp," or "I read this article on abortion in Chile today, and it was craaaaaazy?" And who else would be tolerant of his hummus addiction or how often he says, "On Grantland today..." And he really does watch more Family Feud than any person should.) We do fight sometimes and when I asked Jeff about what he thought what we fought about, he only listed things that I do wrong, which caused a mini-spat.

But I love him. (So much.) He is such a good person and a wonderful father and he makes me feel beautiful, and smart, and good enough. (Thank you.) The last five years haven't been smooth sailing every second, but they have been ours.

(I love you)

(But less so when you do that fake-cough thing when things smell bad . YOU KNOW OF WHAT I SPEAK.)

5 years ago.

For our anniversary/Jeff's birthday, we were gifted (by a group of family) a stay at a suuuuuuper fancy hotel in Jackson Hole. This is us at the fancy hotel restaurant. It was great vacation, my first time leaving the children... ever. The food at the fancy restaurant was good, but too fancy to know what it actually was ("Is the Wagyu Tenderloin, you know, beef?"), but I got to steal a lot of hotel toiletries because they were all from L'Occitane en Provence, which I've never shopped at, but they have it at the fancy Stanford Mall, so you know it's good.

We also stopped at Jenny Lake. It was so darn beautiful. I'd love to go back.

We also stayed a night at the Carr family cabin, where I slept 12 hours straight for the first time in 3 years and took a bubble bath which might warrant a call to Guinness.

Adam Birthday!

2013-07-19T11:41:00.000-06:00

Oh my, I need to blog more. I actually have about 3 unfinished blogs, but I'm the kind of blogger that has a hard time finishing something that takes more than one sitting to write. It's also hard to blog because we're busy having a lot of adventures, and I am more active on social media when there is less going on. (Except Instagram. I am always doing that business. I tell you, I would probably continue to post pictures of my kids during the Apocalypse, because they'd still be cute even with fireballs whizzing around.) We are in Utah/Idaho, but mostly Idaho until July 15th, and then we move to Virginia. The current plan is a wild road trip through the South, with Jeff, Adam, and I. I hope to eat at a lot of greasy diners. (UPDATE- Since writing the above, said road trip did happen. We are in Virginia. We ate at Cracker Barrel a lot.)

Ah! I'm not supposed to talk about other things! That's how blogs end up unfinished. I'm here to talk about Adam's birthday. That's what this blog is about. If you are uninterested in Adam or his birthday, you best stop reading. (Please don't stop reading- Adam is a cool kid, I promise.)

Adam turned 3 on May 12th, which happened to be Mother's Day. I cried. I'm welling up a little right now, to tell you the truth. I am just really grateful for my little boy and that gratitude manifests itself in tears.

SOME THINGS ABOUT ADAM:

He is a Daddy's Boy. I feel like basically everyone says that about their kid, but please take this statement to heart. Adam adores Jeff. They are literally best friends. I mean, seriously. I just walked in on them playing with a whoopee cushion and giggling. Adam insists that Jeff feed him, put him to bed, change his diaper, and more. Basically every thing that a parent can do with a child, Adam wants Jeff to do. I can't tell you how many times I hear him say under his breath, "I want Daddy."
Ah, like I mentioned, Adam isn't potty-trained.. I don't really care, but I get asked about it sometimes. Here's the deal: I don't want to potty-train him and have it be disastrous. I want him to be ready and I want it to stick. The funny thing is, he is completely ready now. He is very talkative about all of the bodily functions and expresses interest in the toilet frequently. Now I'm just waiting till we move. I do feel kind of guilty that the only reason he isn't potty-trained is because I haven't even tried to do it, but then I think about it again and I feel pretty great about it.
His favorite foods are probably french fries, Instant Breakfast, celery, Greek yogurt, pizza, cucumbers and Chow Mein. He is still a horrendous eater, but really the biggest issue with him seems to be appetite. He'll try little bits of lots of things and he'll say that he likes it, but in reality, Adam just doesn't like food very much. Except cupcakes. He is ok with those.
He knows all of his letters, colors, and numbers. He is extremely good at shapes (Thank you, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for not being completely worthless and teaching my kid about octagons.) and can count to 20. I've tried to introduce sounds that letters make, but that's not really sticking yet. I also can't get him to write any letters other than "o."
He is uncommonly considerate for his age. If he notices that anyone is upset, he is really concerned. This is really sweet, but sometimes gets to be a little much if we are in a place with a lot of crying kids. My mom had a surgery a couple of weeks, and he's still asking if she's ok. He's a sweet boy. He also has gotten super good at comforting Avery. "It's ok, Avy, it's ok. Mommy will be right back." (Avery screams anytime I leave the room, FYI.)
He uses similes a lot. "Avery is bouncing, like a ball." "I am crawling, like a frog,"
He's very talkative, probably too talkative. I used to be really aware of his development and I knew where he stood, but I really have no clue now. I'm pretty sure he's fine. (Yes- I just googled it. He's fine.) It's really bizarre to think that he really didn't talk very much at all a year ago.
He is so incredibly energetic. I really wonder if he has ADHD sometimes. I just feel like he's more hyper than other kids his age. But, good news, he's very easy to reason with and he listens really well. He also hasn't ever been big on tantrums (fingers crossed he stays that way). He's more of a whiner. I'm a big believer that every kid has different tendencies towards different vices. Adam isn't really ever a brat, but he can whine up a storm.
He still naps. Thank goodness. He's very good about it, too.
He loves shoes. I think this is because a certain uncle of his buys him super nice shoes. He just grew into a new pair of Air Jordans and he adores them. He wants to sleep in them.
His favorite show is the aforementioned Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, but he'll watch anything. The kid loves TV. I feel like I maybe shouldn't admit that, but it's true. This is a scene from today. Me: "Time to turn the TV off. You've watched enough." Adam: "I want to watch just a little bit." Me: "You've watched a lot of TV today." Adam: "Yeah. I want to watch a lot of TV just a little bit." Maybe that's not interesting to read, but the way he says "just a little bit" is probably the cutest thing ever.
On our cross-country road trip, he was amazing. People are always sympathetic when they hear that we took him, but he's just super pleasant in the car. We have a DVD player in our car, but we've never revealed that to the kids. I don't want to be the kind of family that has it on while driving to the store. Anyway, we whipped it out for the 6-day drive and he was really touched. He thought we bought him a TV. "You went to the TV store!"
He's funny. I don't know how to explain this one in a bullet-point. He's just a weird little kid. He's always saying or doing something that makes us laugh hysterically. Recently- he ran into the room and said, "See my belly!" flashed us, and ran away again.
He knows his states freakishly well. He knows that California is where his old house (and his best friend Henry) is, Utah is where the Grandparents Lougee are and Idaho is where the Grandparents Carr are. He also knows the names of: Nevada, Colorado, Montana, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and Virginia, because those are the states he's been too. He actually gets the concept really well. He knows that Sun Valley is a place IN the state of Idaho, and he know that the Orange Bridge (Golden Gate) is in California. We keep hearing the word, "Virginia" and he says "That's where my new house is! California is a state too." We've shown him England on maps (because that's where Jeff's sister, Amy lived last year), but he hasn't completely grasped the country concept yet. Though I guess he does get "America," because sometimes when he hears that word, he says: "America. I live there with my parents."
I love that little boy so much. Except he won't let us call him "little" anymore. He's a self-proclaimed big kid.

Us at Stanford. Adam loved visiting Daddy at work.

This was completely Adam and Jeff's doing. Sorry, Costco.

He wanted to toast Brielle with some Tabasco sauce.

He asks me to take pictures of him sometimes. (See above.) It's like he knows how adorable he is.

His birthday cake.

Playing games with Uncle James at Chuck E Cheese. He loves that place.

He's constantly doing stuff like this.

Adam: "Mommy! I'm driving with my feet!"
Me: "You probably shouldn't steer cars with your feet. It's dangerous."
Adam: "No, it's not dangerous. It's funny."

Adam and Henry hug it out after a 2 week absence. The fell on the concrete, due to their enthusiasm.

Adam still has Ducky. Jeff's mom gave him an Extreme Makeover, and Adam was enthusiastic. Also, Ducky was disgusting before.

Playing in the pool.

He wanted to pretend to be a bat.

He also wanted to pretend to be a turtle.

I just love his little run. I think he looks like a goblin.

Adam only wants to wear stickers on his forehead.

Chomping on some celery as we cruised the Las Vegas Strip. That's definitely not worth taking a picture, but he looked so handsome that I've become fond of this one.

Still not sure why he made that face.

LET'S REVIEW:

Zero.

One

Two

THREE!