Beginning of July 2023 - Girl Scout Camp, Big Bear, Tiny's birthday, & Drive to Utah

We (plus Ella Rondo) hit Big Bear Lake on July 1. The wait at the rental place was a little painful. 

Kayaking was lovely, though. After this, we decided to be lake people and bought a kayak and a couple of stand-up paddleboards. 

Everyone besides Ever (party pooper) jumped off the rocks. Wrenzy is in blue jumping on the left. 

Monday, Ever left for sleepaway Girl Scout camp with Leela Subrebost and Grace Spengler. Grace's mom, Casey, got a bunch of pics of the girls through the week. In almost all of them, Ever looked incredibly unhappy. 

I mean, the difference between Leela's smile and Ever's scowl here...

When I picked them up from the bus stop on Friday, though, they were cheery. The report was that it was fun but hot, and the food was not great. 

While Ever was gone, the Longs had us, the Gustafsons, and the Marc and Melanie Oddous over for the Fourth of July. We ate dinner and told stories, and it was very fun. At the end of the night, the kids played with glowsticks and sparklers.

Tiny's seventh birthday was on a Saturday, and Jim and I made the executive decision that we had to drive that day on our way to the little Hastings family reunion in Brian Head, UT. Tiny really did not want to drive on her birthday, but Jim promised to make it worth her while (as he always does). Ever was at a Girl Scout sleepaway camp that first week of July, so we celebrated Tiny's birthday with Cikaneks and without Ever on Thursday, July 6. Tiny wanted to make a mirror birthday cake from her cookbook, so we did. It was a chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting and this glossy layer that looked like space.

Technically the space layer was edible, but it was gross. Fortunately it was very easy to peel off.

Tiny opened presents that evening and gave Wrenzy nice loves when she opened her gift. 

We drove to Vegas Friday night, July 7, after Jim got off work. We arrived very late. Saturday morning, the children enjoyed the hotel breakfast (sugar cereal!). They call Fruit Loops "Tootie Frooties," and that's wonderful. 

Jim had found a hotel with a big pool (obviously - Vegas) and waterslides, so that was the main event Saturday. That and treats were how Jim made traveling on Tiny's birthday worthwhile. 

I had made plans to meet my cousin, Nicole Beck, and her daughter, Katriann, for dinner that night. We tried to squeeze in a visit to the Strip between pool and dinner. We watched the temperature on the car with great interest. So hot.

The children didn't really care about anything we tried to point out on the Strip, but we went through the Paris hotel and got crepes despite its being right before dinner. Crepes, they cared about. 

We had dinner with the Becks at a pizza place. Nicole is great. Then Tiny had leftovers back at the hotel later. 

This was Tiny's favorite spot in the hotel - on the tiny ledge outside, legs through the gap under the railing, feet dangling.

We drove to Hurricane, UT that night and stayed in a motel there so we could be ready for Zion National Park the next day. Love these three. How long can we make them all share a bed? 

Tiny's Sleepwalking: A Snapshot

4/9/23, 10:15 P.M.

Jim got up from the couch and went to the downstairs bathroom before heading up to bed. He found Tiny in the dark bathroom asleep on the mat in front of the toilet. 

4/24/23

I was hearing movement upstairs, probably in the ten o'clock hour. I went to see who was up and why. The light in the girls' bathroom was on and the door closed. When I tried to open the door, it was blocked by Tiny's body. Again, she was asleep on the bath mat in front of the toilet. I couldn't open the door to lift her up, but she awoke when I said her name. She got up quickly and said, all squinty-eyed and confused, "What's going on?" 

The next morning, I asked her if she remembered what happened. She didn't remember but had seen on the floor of the bathroom the red panda stuffy with which she'd been sleeping the night before and figured it out. 

Around 5/8/23

Tiny got out of bed and came downstairs while Jim and I were watching TV. My instinct is to hurry her to the bathroom because I assume that's why she wakes up. She said she didn't need to go. She came up onto my lap and hugged me, and then I took her back to bed. She just need a late-night snuggle, I guess. It was quite nice. She had no recollection of it in the morning.   

6/26/2023

Dawn came for the weekend to visit Grandpa. We got up at 4:00 A.M. to leave for the airport Monday morning. When she flipped on the kitchen/family room light, she discovered Tiny asleep on the couch. Nobody knows when Tiny relocated herself in the night. She, of course, did not remember going downstairs. 

9/12/24 (Tacking this on later, as we just had another funny occurrence)

Jim and I were on the couch around 10:00 P.M., and I heard footsteps coming quickly. As I was getting up, I caught a glimpse of Tiny rushing around the corner by the bathroom. I called to her, but she just flung open the door to the garage and rushed out. I made it to the garage door right as she reentered the house. I asked her if she needed the bathroom and pointed her to it. After she used the restroom, she came out, waved to us when we said goodnight, and went back upstairs. The next morning, she said she had awakened with an extra t-shirt on. In her sleepwalking, she had put a tie-dyed t-shirt on over the one she was sleeping in. When she got up in the morning, she wondered why her shirt felt heavy and discovered an extra layer. 

The Rest of June 2023 - Summer Stuff and Parenting Woes

Mamo came back to Oceanside for a few days (on her way to Virginia, I think). We went on a Sunday walk. Ever was super bitter about it and lagged behind with Wren trying to ruin the experience for everyone. Jim and I tried to ignore it, but it was the worst. 

We stopped at a park on the way to the beach. Tiny, of course, found a tree. 

Ever, being a pill. 

When Wren and Ever had their piano lessons with Amber Dahlberg, Tiny liked to play at the park across the street.

Belated Mother's Day card from Berry. This was probably delivered in May, but the pictures, at least, were taken in June. 

Berry and Tiny made lemon cookies (rolled in sugar) and really enjoyed them. 

Jim went on a surf trip in the end of April while sporting a shaggy mullet (his sun protection). End of May was a trip to Hawai'i. Finally, he got a haircut. These amazing tan lines were the result, and they persist as I write this (though not quite so pronounced) a year and a half later. 

Ever and Tiny did a horse camp at The Riding School in Vista with Miss Beth. Ever got invited to go on a wakeboarding trip with Ella Rondo for two days, and Miss Beth let Wrenzy go to horse camp in her stead, which was lovely. 

The last day, the girls got ribbons and horseshoes. 

Jay Berry (we started calling her that when we read Summer of the Monkeys) helped make pizza that night.

We went to a Wave game and got autographs from Amirah Ali. 

Wren is cool. She is relaxing. (Berry wrote that.) 

Wrenzy hiked up her pants and became the Puffy Pants King.

This would be a throw-away video except that it memorializes the way the girls call walking arm in arm "wedding style."

 

Wrenzy and I had a mommy/daughter date. We walked around the trail to the little park by the Rancho Del Oro neighborhood, where we stumbled upon some frisbee-golf discs and played with those for a while. 

More cookie baking.

That week was Ever's soccer team camp. It culminated with a pizza party at the park after the last day.

Note the size difference between Ever (in the middle) and everyone else on her team. So small. 

Coach Madeline had a surprise planned; she started a water balloon fight during the photo shoot. 

That night, I did a Family Home Evening lesson on the Word of Wisdom / nutrition. We went through a webpage about healthy eating. We talked about the various food groups, healthy sources of protein, etc. As soon as I finished, Wrenzy took out a piece of paper, scrolled through the website, and took notes. She is so studious and so earnest. The next day for lunch, she mixed raw oats and the rest of our sunflower seeds (loaded with salt that had fallen to the bottom) into a bowl. She said it looked like horse feed, but she ate it, along with fruits and vegetables. She wanted to drink milk, so I poured her a teeny bit. She hates it so much that she had to water it down in order to stomach it. But she drank it. 

I started going through the little-kid books in our library with Wrenzy and Tiny, reading them and taking out ones we can give away. We read for probably an hour on Friday morning, 6/23. Later that afternoon, I found the littles in their room reading more of them on their own (although they didn't weed out any).  

They frequently pull books off the shelves and reread them - even the more kiddie books - and it's wonderful. 

Jim was staining our deck posts/beams and fences. It takes so very many hours. He told the girls he'd pay them $5 an hour if they helped. This afternoon, the Littles put in about 3.5 hours, and Ever put in about 2.5. It was amazing. The Littles, in particular, were tireless. Nathan and Noah were desperate for playmates, but the Littles wanted to paint. 

Ever made a goal to practice soccer every day. There was a San Diego Wave game one night. We had decided not to use our season tickets - we sold those - and just to watch it on T.V. As the Wave game was starting, Ever said she was going to head up to the courts (the HOA tennis courts, next to which is a turf area with a soccer goal) to practice by herself. She returned after a little while, and then Jim went back up with her. They had a good practice and just came home in time for the tail end of the Wave game. I was very impressed by her determination. 

We met the family of Kaia Johnson, Tiny's friend from school, at the beach. That may have been the only time we made it to the beach all summer. 

We went to the county fair with Cikaneks. It was fabulous because Wren and Nathan could ride some of the big rides together, and the Littles could ride with Noah. Also Cikaneks took off before we did and bequeathed us a bunch of leftover ride tickets, so that was amazing.

Ever's and Nathan's faces on this ride were hilarious. They - especially Nathan - were absolutely terrified. But they were giddy and excited when they got off. 

Tiny and Noah. Adorbs.

I was excited about watching the trucks. Ear plugs would have been good, though.

We got to see some trucks get towed off, and we saw multiple crashes.

Funnel cake is our fair food of choice. We had to find a vendor that serves it with Nutella; many don't.

My oldest got the most Nutella on her face. 

It's hard for the Littles that they are brave but not tall enough for a lot of the rides. Tiny hit the swings before we left. 

Nana and Papa Rondo, who are amazing (Nana, in particular, is superhuman), took grandkids plus Ever on a few wakeboarding trips. Ever is a lucky lady. 

Susan Oddou and Mel Karner organized a baby shower for Melanie Oddou in honor of her fourth child. I tried to put my feelings about showers for fourth babies (really, anything other than first babies) aside. 

Left to right: Sara Walker, Anne Bunnell, Melanie Oddou, Sheryl Borough, 

Shanna Warr, me, Maggie Long, Kara Karner, Melanie Karner, Hilary Lawrence, Amy Catale, and Megan Bunnell

 

Mel asked if the girls could make a dessert for the shower, and that turned contentious. Ultimately, they made a butter cake and mint chocolate brownies. I wrote this part describing the drama about the dessert-making and other stuff contemporaneously as its own post called "Parenting," which I never published. It's venting, but for posterity, I think it's important to remember what having kids is really like. 

Melanie Karner texted last night to ask if Ever could make a dessert for Melanie Oddou's baby shower on Friday and did I still have Ever's order form? (Ever had offered baking-for-hire many months ago, and I had blasted out her offering list.) Mel didn't know that the Littles had just this week decided they want to do a bake sale and had put together a list of what they want to make and how much they want to charge for each item. So in response to Melanie's text, I said I was sure that Ever or the Littles or both would love to make something, and she doesn't need to pay for it. (I figured I could pay the girls or something.) 

So this morning, I went upstairs to tell Ever about it. She immediately started crying and freaking out because she wanted the business, and Mel didn't want two desserts, and if she did, Ever should be able to make them both, and she has her own ingredients (which she bought) that she needs to use, etc. 

My next contact with Ever was about 15 minutes later when she found me in the office and told me that the Littles had watched two episodes of "Nailed It" (stupid cooking show) last night for finishing all their stuff, and she had finished all her stuff first thing yesterday. I said something about how Ever has been watching movies every night. (Last night I took her to a Spider-verse movie in the theater for a date night because she had a Regal Cinemas gift card to use. Otherwise a date night wouldn't have included a movie. During the time we were gone, the Littles watched the two "Nailed It" episodes. The night before last, Ever watched half of one of the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies because she had filled her pom pom jar. She didn't have enough time to watch the whole thing and will be finishing it tonight.) In response to my saying she'd been watching movies, she said it was because she had filled her pom pom jar. Again, all the tears and outrage. I just sat there. Eventually I said, "I don't know, Goose." I have no idea how to respond to these things. The selfishness and keeping track and insisting that no one get anything good that you don't get - always with treats and shows. Ever just flies off the handle at the slightest thing. Her emotions are unreasonably huge. Sometimes she becomes a little more reasonable after time passes, but always she insists that no one should ever eat a treat or watch a show if she doesn't also get to. (Of course, she's getting treats in YW lessons and activities every week, and she gets treats at friends' houses, but she's not worried about making sure her sisters are made whole.)  

Then Tiny and Wrenzy, who had been playing outside, came in. They entered the office fighting over who should shut the door. Wrenzy said Tiny had come in last, but Tiny said Wrenzy still had her hand on the door. Wrenzy said, "No." Tiny said, "Yes." Wrenzy said, "No." Tiny said, "Yes." Wrenzy escalated, as she does, and yelled, "No!" I put my hand on her arm and tried to get her to calm her voice, but she pushed my hand away at the same time that she pushed Tiny down on the other side of her and stormed out in a rage. As Tiny fell down and started crying, I said, "You're in so much trouble, Wren." Then, as she marched down the hall, I yelled it: "You're in so much trouble, Wren!" 

Do I know what the consequences should be? No. Do I know how to handle any of these situations? Not at all. No idea. I don't know how to respond to any of this. I don't know how to handle it in the moment, and I don't know how to make it so these things stop happening. I don't know how to stop the selfishness. I don't know how to make my kids care about other people. I don't know how to stop their fighting. I don't know anything. All day, every day, I don't know what to do.