Alice in July

I’m happy to report that Alice’s separation anxiety is diminishing. She is doing much better in nursery (when Bryan’s there) and she has started letting Bryan put her to bed. She is still my barnacle baby though. Alice is is also slowly adding to her vocabulary although I think she and I are both frustrated progress is not coming faster. Bryan is actually much better at interpreting her than I am (he was also much better with Norah too – is he better at thinking outside the box? I would like to know what trait he has that aids him in understanding toddlers). It’s a shame he isn’t around more to help us communicate. One of her new words is buckle. Alice is adamant about buckling her car seat buckle that goes across her chest all by herself but when I’m in a hurry I forget and and she yells buckle (sounds like buh-ull) at me and insists I unbuckle her so she can do it herself.

Little Alice has been such a trooper this month. I dragged to the paint store at least 8 times and she has accommodated Norah’s busy schedule of play dates, parties and swim lessons. Alice loves doing whatever Norah is doing so for the most part she is content to let Norah’s plans dictate hers as long as she is included in the fun. Here she is eating a pool side snack with Oliver.Norah was still in preschool for most of July so I would take Alice to Tietze park after dropping off Norah (and before heading to paint store) On Monday and Tuesday the pool is closed except for swim lessons and Alice just has to watch. I bring her doll stroller and we walk around the pool but it is baby torture for her to not get to swim. I swim with her Wednesday and Thursday during the lesson and I really savor having that one on one time with her even if I don’t have a picture to prove it. I also unfortunately don’t have a picture to prove how smiley she is. She really is – I just took very few pictures this month.

Norah in July

Norah has been riding her bike on the trail around White Rock Lake every Saturday. We go pretty early in the morning and there are bikers everywhere but very few children (maybe other kids sleep in?) so Norah on her bike is a novelty and attracts lots of attention. She gets a steady flow of comments like “looking good” and “way to go, keep pedaling” and she was even told once that someday she’d “win the tour de France” to which said “there’s an Eiffel tower on my bike.”

Here she is exhausted after a long rideNorah also started taking swim lessons this month. Her teacher is “lifeguard Laney” and it took 8 lessons to get Norah to put her head under the water.Norah is now repeating the courseWe’ve been doing a lot of repainting this month and Norah enjoyed helping. We finished painting the living room and family room but the playroom still looks pretty much how it does in this picture. We’ll get to it eventually. Norah has also had a slew of fun birthday parties to attend – she went to 4 this month!

Quicksand and Cactus

 

Pioneers have been on my mind a lot this month because of  Pioneer Day and because I read Quicksand and Cactus a memoir by Juanita Brooks. It deeply resonated with me. Juanita wasn’t from the generation that crossed the plains but the generation that made the desert bloom as rose – only the desert her family settled in Bunkerville, Nevada was so harsh I don’t think it ever bloomed. It sounds cliché, but I was struck by how faithful and hardworking her community was. It seemed like any anecdote she shared, no matter how unrelated to work and faith, were back dropped by work and faith. This has inspired me to start teaching Norah to help with chores around the house. I was also impressed by the detail she could recall from her life and only realized towards the end of the book, as she included diary excerpts, that it was because she had recorded her life. To me her childhood was fascinating and extraordinary and yet I’m sure it was typical of the time and place she lived in. I feel more motivated to blog after reading Quicksand and a desire to make it a bit more personal – which is why I’m even writing about my reaction to this book. I’ve been pretty good about posting and writing “we went such and such and had a good time” but I rarely ever write down my thoughts. I want to be able look back and remember what I was doing and also what I was thinking.

Quicksand struck a chord with me because Juanita was a bit of a rebel. She was faithful to the end of her life but there were times she challenged what she was taught. For example, as a young child she listened to her mother sing a pioneer hymn in church that was very vengeful and Juanita told her mom she thought it had no place in Christ’s church. I know that might not seem significant, but I think for a child to challenge a parent like that is a display of moral courage to follow her conscience. I couldn’t help but see this incident as precursor to her work as a historian documenting the Mountain Meadows Massacre despite being pressured not to by the church. She ends the memoir when she is about 35 years old – long before her writing career - but the introduction gave some insight to this part of her life. I described her as a rebel but the intro specifically says that “she must be seen as a responsible thinker, not as a rebel or even a dissident.” Juanita’s efforts to change the way the Church talked about its past were misunderstood at the time but now she is appreciated for helping the Church to heal. The introduction shared a quote from Juanita that I love “When a cowboy wants to turn a herd of stampeding cattle, he doesn’t run directly counter to them. If he did, he’d be run over. He rides with them, and turns them gradually. So if I don’t like the stand of the church, I can do more about it by staying in.” This was personally relevant to me because I identify as a Mormon feminist and hope that one day women will be ordained. Some people find this puzzling because they equate questioning the status quo with a lack of faith. An old acquaintance recently said he was disgusted by feminists wanting to change the Church and suggested that we just leave Church. He truly could not understand why we would stay when clearly, to him, we had no faith. I wish I could have responded to him with that quote from Juanita. I do have faith – I have enough faith to believe that the imperfect church that I belong to can change. I love that Juanita compares the church to a herd of stampeding cattle because sometimes I think people just run in the direction everyone else is running in without asking why. Juanita implied that she was a cowboy in this analogy (and I think she was influential enough to claim that) but I see myself as one of the cattle. I don’t expect to influence others but I do take personal responsibility to question the direction I’m running in and to understand why. I often hear friends who are struggling with their faith ask (and I have asked it myself) how to reconcile belief that the church is guided by revelation when we sometimes feel our leaders are misguided. We place so much responsibility on them and forget that we as members are like a stampeding herd of cattle. The cowboy can only do so much. We all need to change direction together. I have great hope that we will. Alma 32:21 says “And now as I said concerning faith—faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.”

Primary Pioneer Day Activity

Our Primary had a special Pioneer Day activity today. We were told in advance to come dressed as pioneers so I called Bryan’s mom for help and within a few days we received a package of pioneer clothing. Norah and Alice loved wearing their bonnets and aprons and actually kept them on! This primary activity was such a huge success. I had fun, the kids had fun and we all learned a lot. I’m want to record all the great things they planned in case I ever need to plan an activity like this. My Little PioneerWe started the activity off by walking around the church singing pioneer songsThen we listened to a “real” pioneer talk about her life. She told us all about smashing her china to make the Kirtland Temple sparkle and leaving her home to find Zion. She also taught them all about what pioneers ate and gave them samples of homemade Taffy, beef jerky and currants and let them shake cream into butter. Sister Martinez, our primary president is holding the picture. Norah LOVES Sister Martinez – I do too. I didn’t get a good enough picture of our guest pioneer to post – but she is my friend Ann. Ann also taught them about the toys that pioneer children had and what games they played.One of the games they played was “button, button, who’s got the button?” They also did three legged races and stick pull, learned about the crickets and the seagulls (and tossed clothes pins painted like crickets into a basket), made pioneer homes with 1/2 pint milk cartons, kneaded dough and smashed strawberries to make jam.  They also did three legged races and stick pull, learned about the crickets and the seagulls (and tossed clothes pins painted like crickets into a basket), made pioneer homes with 1/2 pint milk cartons, kneaded dough and smashed strawberries to make jam. 

4th of July with the Watts

After the parade we went home and got ready for our BBQ with Emily, Mike and Evelyn. We have a 4th bedroom in this house so we invested in a guest bed in the hopes that we’d attract more visitors and they were the first to try it out.

Oh the simple pleasures of childhood! The popsicles led to a bath Bryan had to work on Friday but on Saturday we all went to the Dallas Zoo We saw lots of animals We fit 3 kids on the sit and stand And we rode on the monorail. It was fun having the Watts visit and we look forward to seeing more them.

4th of July Parade

Our friends David and Christine and their son David (he goes to preschool with Norah) invited us to the University Park parade. It was so.much.fun. We met at their house and the kids piled in the wagon and we made our way to the park and parade route. There was so much to do and everything was free: bouncy houses, lemonade, frozen yogurt, reptiles to pet (if you’re into that) and more. The parade was great too and Bryan and I couldn’t help but laugh at what a stark contrast it was to the Ithaca Festival Parade. A sampling of what we saw starting with the 10 commandments: There were more beautiful, old timey cars than I’ve ever seen in my life – total. Seriously, one after another, amazing.Then we lost Norah. She wondered off collecting candy that had been thrown in the street and Bryan and I each thought the other was watching her. As soon as we noticed we started walking up and down the street looking for her (assuming she was candy hunting) but when we didn’t quickly find her we started to panic. I had taken some pictures of her and started to show one to the Rotary club volunteers and Boy Scout leaders that were keeping the kids from running into the street. This boy scout with glasses in this picture below saved the day. He said “oh Yeah, I found her and just sent her with a City Official” and pointed me in the right direction. Norah was sitting on a chair with a lollypop and a bag of popcorn with two cops and a city employee talking to her. They were just getting ready to make an announcement. I don’t think Norah had wandered very far off but she was probably just looking at the ground and when she looked up everyone looked the same in their red white and blue and she just couldn’t see how to get back to where we were. I think it is pretty incredible that this Boy Scout Leader was able to notice Norah was lost so quickly. Way to go Scouts! Not so much us parents:( We felt a little less ashamed of ourselves after we heard a few lost child announcements. If you’re going to lose a kid, University Park is the place to do it. They are on top of things there.