Why Ever is Wonderful

I need to blog about my San Francisco/Reno trip, but I'm going to post this one about Ever out of order. Much of it just happened tonight, and it's fresh.

Last Sunday, I asked Ever, "What did you do in Primary today?" She answered, "I hit everyone and punched them. I really did." Hilarious (but only because I know she would never touch another kid).

Later that day, Jim pulled out our Christmas stuff, and we decorated the house. Afterward, Ever asked me, "Do you feel the Spirit?" I said, "Sometimes." She said, "Do you feel the Spirit now? Because I do." I asked why, and she said the Christmas decorations make her feel the Spirit. I told her that she helps me feel the Spirit because I love our family so much, and I'm so grateful that we can be together forever.

Monday, I was telling her about how the Silversteins do this "breaking and entering" thing every December with an organization that helps families get out of homelessness. The Silversteins are assigned a family and on a specified day are given access to that family's place. They deck it out in Christmas decorations and leave food, presents, and whatever other items would help the family. I told Ever we were going to donate a little wreath we have, along with some food for Christmas breakfast, toiletries, etc. Ever likes the wreath and didn't want to give it to this family. She wanted me to buy them stuff but not give them ours. I asked what Jesus would want us to do. Would he want us to give some of what we have to help people? She said, "No. He wouldn't. You have to do what I say, opparently." And then she kept saying "opparently," like "apparently" but pronounced "oh-parently." It was pretty funny.

Wren has been doing this thing for a few days where instead of flipping onto her belly and going to sleep when I put her down, she stays on her back and screams and screams and screams. Bizarre. Wednesday and Thursday she refused to nap, although she did OK at night after crying for a little while. This was Wrenzo yesterday after screaming for at least an hour instead of napping:

     

Today at least she did finally nap some. Then this evening, Ever came up with me when I put Wren to bed. Ever and I sang to her a bit, and she was calm. I put her down, and she started screaming. I rushed Ever out of the room and closed Wren's door most of the way. Ever stood right outside it and sang "Let it Go" from Frozen, rather loudly, trying to calm Wren. So ineffective, but so wonderful.

Back downstairs, I told Ever I had invited Ella, Kara, Christian, Luc, Aven, and Lelei to her birthday party. I told her we want it to be a fun day with her friends. Then I told her I had asked her friends not to bring presents. (Nobody does no-present parties here. I'm trying to start a revolution, although I know it's doomed.) Ever started crying. I let her cry a second, and then she let me explain. I told her that she would still get presents from Daddy and me and other family. Also at least one of her friends (Ella) supposedly really wants to bring her a present, so I told the invitees that if they really felt the need to bring something, they could bring something they already had that they didn't have to buy at the store. So Ella, and maybe others, may bring something like that. I told Ever we want her to have toys and things to play with. We love her so much. But sometimes kids who have too much stuff start to care only about stuff instead of caring about other people. We want her birthday party to be about her love for her friends and their love for her, not about stuff. Also, some parents need to spend their money on their house, food, clothes, and things like that, and I don't want them to feel as if they need to spend money on presents. Somewhere in there, I repeated that Ever would get presents from Daddy and me and other family, including probably the Wilsons. She said she had already asked Auntie Trisha to give her presents. I feel bad about this, but I said something like, "Why did you do that?" She just started crying and said, "I didn't know!" I tried to comfort her, told her it was OK, and said, "They like to treat us like family and probably want to buy you presents." I also got emotional telling her we have so much. We have this wonderful house, clothes, all the food we want, everything we need, and so many kids in the world don't have food, clothes, or even mommies or daddies. We have so much. We are so lucky. Then Ever added another reason to request no gifts: "And we wouldn't have anyplace to put it." I said, "Yeah, we could fit a little bit more in the playroom but not much." "Yeah," she said, "we could fit a little more in the playroom and upstairs, but not much." And she was totally fine. I cried and told her how amazing she is and how much we love her. She is the sweetest, sweetest thing.

After the birthday talk, we had dinner. I was trying to clean up burrito leftovers, so I had a second burrito even though I was pretty full. Not long after I started eating it, I said, "I'm too full. I got too much food." I ended up telling Ever how eating too much, or eating food that's bad for you, does bad things to your body. I started explaining how your heart pumps blood all over your body, and every part of your body needs that blood to work. But eating too much, or eating bad food, makes this stuff in your body that clogs up the little tubes that go to your heart (my medical knowledge is seriously lacking). Her eyes got big, and she said earnestly, "You shouldn't eat that. Don't eat anymore!" She so solemnly tried to convince me to stop eating. She asked if my heart would stop working. I said no, I would have to eat a lot more than that. I told her I was almost done and would just finish it, but I wouldn't eat any more after that and would do better tomorrow. She said in her serious voice, "Don't eat breakfast!" She thought I would still be full in the morning, and I agreed that if I were, I wouldn't eat breakfast.

After we finished eating, we sat down with paper and a pen. I drew a person who originally maybe was Tutu, but then I gave her freckles, so she wasn't Tutu anymore. I drew a heart and veins and arteries, and we talked further about that. (Jim's going to have to give her this lesson again but with accurate medical facts.) Ever said, "After tomorrow, I won't eat treats for the rest of the month." During dinner she was begging me to let her have a gingerbread cookie for breakfast (we made some with Luc today), and we also talked about how she'd get a treat at the ward Christmas party tomorrow night. I'm not sure which of those things (or both) made her carve out tomorrow. In any case, she doesn't really grasp how long a month is and will be begging me for treats every day, but it was cute.

We didn't spend all of dinner talking about serious subjects like heart disease. At one point, she said, "I heard something. Like a toot, but I didn't toot." I realized they were bombing on Camp Pendleton, and that's what she heard/felt. We had a good laugh about that.

I just really think she's the cutest, sweetest, funniest kid. I texted Jim after she went to bed and said, "Our eldest is extraordinary."

Halloween

Our ward Halloween party was the night before Halloween. Ever went early with Jim to help set up. I was going to take Wren and meet them there. Wren lost it as I was getting ready to go. She was so tired. She's a six-o'clock-bedtime kind of girl, and the 6:30 start time just wasn't going to work for her. I stayed home and put her to bed. Later, my visiting teachee and friend, Gwen Holm, sent me this picture of Ever with Gwen's mom, Betsy Young:

I was pleased that Ever would sit with Betsy. Betsy has severe dementia, so although she loves kids, I don't know if she ever really remembers Ever specifically.

On Halloween we had dinner at Paul and Susan Oddou's with them and the Goodwins, and then we all went trick-or-treating in the Oddous' neighborhood. This is the only shot I got of the kids before we set out:

L to R: Lincoln and Addi Goodwin, Ever (as Elsa from Frozen, of course), & Luc

It's impossible to describe how over-the-top the houses in that neighborhood are with the decorations, and my pictures don't do them justice. This place was Pirates-of-the-Caribbean themed, complete with music from the movies playing outside:

This house had giant spiders, webs, a ghost, and all sorts of things all over it, along with a movie being projected onto a screen on the right side of the yard:

One guy sat on his porch and played his electric guitar all night. The music was blasting through his speakers. Wrenzo slept through it, though. Another house had a big popcorn maker on the driveway, and the residents passed out bags of popcorn.

That street was a zoo. I don't remember Halloween's being a very big deal when I was growing up, but some people here REALLY get into it.

Back at the house, Ever and Luc sorted their candy and did some trading:

Jim told Ever that Halloween is her night, and she can stay up as late as she wants. We had mentioned the possibility of meeting up with the Karners in Rancho del Oro (the crazy-decorated neighborhood we went to last year) after we finished with the Oddous. Jim and I really just wanted to go home and were very pleased when Ever seemed to forget the whole Karner thing. Jim was so pleased, in fact, that he let Ever watch some short videos when we got home. She was a zombie, but that kid can fight sleep like nobody's business:

Wren wore the Halloween onesie that Nana gave Ever when she was a baby. Festive enough for a seven-month-old, right?

Those pictures show Wrenzo doing her favorite thing: sticking out her tongue and curling it up over her upper lip. She does it all the time and has for many months. It's unfortunate I don't have any better pictures of it.

That concludes Halloween 2015.

Wrenzo Grows - 6 Months Plus

Wrenzo had her six-month doctor's appointment right after she turned seven months old. (We got a little behind.) She weighed 15 lbs, 14.5 oz - about the 30th percentile - and was in the 85th percentile for height. Tall and light! Her head circumference plummeted to about the 37th percentile. I was glad about the downsizing of the head, as long as her skull and brain are still growing OK, and the doctor wasn't worried.

Right around her six-month birthday, she got her two bottom teeth. (Now, at eight months old, her top two teeth have broken through.)

She also got the sitting thing down:

She was spending lots of time in her "lab," as I like to call it:

She swiveled and bounced and hit the toys around like a madwoman. She'd keep busy in her station for long periods of time. It was very fun to watch her work. (Today, she protests when I put her in that thing.) 

One day, a few days after her seven-month birthday, I set Wren down on her belly in her little pink play area and didn't watch her for a minute. I heard her screaming as if she were in pain, but I couldn't figure out how she possibly could've hurt herself. Then I found her like this, stuck up on the support piece under the table:

She hasn't made any progress on the crawling front, but she sure can spin herself around and push herself backward.  As evidenced by the picture above, she can slide amazingly fast on the hardwood floor. I need to be a little careful now because she's semi-mobile in a weird way:

She is so sweet and funny. She always smiles back, and she laughs a lot - especially when she's being mischievous. She likes to hold onto things I don't want her to hold onto - like her diaper when I'm trying to take it off or her legs when I'm trying to put them down to put a diaper on. Then she'll laugh and laugh when I try to pull whatever it is out of her hands. 

She also eats up everything her sister does. It's hard to feed Wren when Ever is moving around the room because Wren's head will jerk all over the place trying to follow Ever.

Wren is working on her communication. It started with clucking. Then she began shaking her head. It's pretty cute. This was tonight (chronology be darned) when Ever tried to feed Wren and Wren was not hungry:

I came home from San Francisco/Reno last week to Wren saying "dada" in the sweetest little voice. She has no idea what it means, but still - it's progress. 

She's also crying when I put her down or do something she doesn't like. I used to be able to do whatever I wanted with her, but she's getting a will and letting me know about it. She's still good-natured, though, so she usually stops crying after a second.

She still sports the best cheeks in the business, and they get a lot of love:

Because I have one other post-Virginia, pre-Halloween picture, here's the best big sister, practicing her baby-carrying skills:

(Ever has at least two babies in there. Maybe three.) She actually likes on occasion to hold Wren in the air and walk around with her. Wren loves it, but it makes me nervous. 

Ever continues to be a loving, sweet, helpful big sister. These girls are adorable together, and we love them to pieces.