Do you ever get overwhelmed by all the things you know you'll forget? The thoughts and epiphanies you had. The songs and shows and books you liked. The recipes that were your favorite. The cute and funny things your kids said and did. The stories your mom and dad told you. The fun times with siblings and friends. The sweet moments you and your husband shared. Even the hard times you faced.
Sometimes it makes it worse for me that there are so many ways to record these things: Handwritten journals, letters and e-mails to family and friends, date books, blogs, video and audio recordings, photo albums, scrapbooks. At times the thought that I will only manage to get down a tiny fraction of all those little moments that make up my life makes me want to give up. Also, because I am crazy, I sometimes worry about a fire, flood or other natural disaster wiping out all of my physical efforts at recording or some sort of huge internet glitch wiping out all of my online ones. But I know I will be forever grateful for whatever I find it feasible to record, and that keeps me trying. Just the act of recording and thinking about recording, helps me cement some of the memories and experiences in my brain as well. And, of course, I know the most important thing is, like I said in the marshmallow post, to enjoy the moments at hand while I have them. And I think I usually do a fairly good job of that. (By the way, were any of you impressed with the amount of times I used the word marshmallow in that post? It may be as many as I have in the rest of my life combined.)
Since I rarely, if ever, journal a day anymore, I thought it was about time. Just so I can remember what this stage of life is like.
Kate woke me up a little after seven. I was a bit tired. Actually, Mike and I had been up a bit late the night before planning how to better organize and store our photo records. So I brought Kate back to bed with me for twenty minutes so she could crawl on my head and try to tussle with Mike. I finally got out of bed and Kate and I played for a little while. Then Maggie started to stir and Kate hurried to greet her, followed by me. (I love that my girls always run to greet each other when the other wakes. They usually beat me.) We had family prayer with Mike, who then left for work, enjoyed an easy cereal breakfast and talked about the day's plans. (Maggie didn't fall asleep last night thinking about having cinnamon chip scones for breakfast, so we didn't have to make those this morning. That was last week.)
After breakfast, I gave in to chants of "Do-ra, Do-ra" since the girls have been so good about not watching TV on Sundays and I had some things to get done. (Dora really is the favorite lately. A month ago it was Arthur. And before that Curious George, Angelina Ballerina, Kipper, Pooh Bear, Little Bear, and Elmo all had a turn.) I got in a little scripture reading, prayer and made my bed. Then as the girls played, I tidied up a bit and finished some year-end financial records for a local group for stay-at-home moms, where I am helping out as treasurer. (Sometimes I feel a little silly to be in a stay-at-home moms club, but I joined when we first moved here and feel it's a good way to be involved in our community and have made some great friends through it.)
We met up with some friends at the local coffee shop where we had yummy, chocolate, non-coffee containing shakes, chatted and finished up MOMS business while the kids played. Maggie was thrilled her best friends Molly, Brock, and Dalton were there. Afterwards, I dropped some checks at the bank, then got the grocery shopping done while the kids were amazingly good in the car cart. (The fun mom in me came out this past winter and I finally realized I needed to start seeking out the car carts.) Maggie enjoyed helping me look for items and putting the produce in bags for me.
We got home a little later than usual for lunch, but managed to still catch Mike for a few minutes. He helped me unload the groceries and played with the girls for a bit before heading back to work.
After lunch, I cleaned up the kitchen and finished putting away groceries. Then I read to the girls before naptime. Maggie helped me read a story about Dora (surprise!) to Kate and the girls enjoyed laughing like Swiper the thieving fox, "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha." Maggie has been amazing at filling in words in stories she's heard for the past year or more and I since the fall I sometimes find her "reading" Kate entire books from memory.
After that, Kate went down for her nap. Unfortunately, I can't usually let Maggie take a nap anymore, because, if I do, she is up until past ten. Even if she's in bed. She will talk to herself and get bored and keep calling me. So Maggie and I played doctor. She was the mom (and later Dr. Maggie) and I was the baby/patient. When I voiced my fear of going to the doctor, she was very reassuring: "Don't worry. The doctor is so nice. You will get a sticker. It won't be so bad."
I would have never known she was the same girl who was bawling at just the thought of leaving for a doctor appointment a week-and-a-half ago. Who when I tried to comfort her, reminding her she was not up for any shots and that the doctor just wanted to measure her, told me that we had a measuring tape at home. Luckily, during that visit the doctor was very kind and reassuring and Maggie ended up coaching Kate through her measurements, saying "It's not so bad Katie. You're just fine." In fact, she later floored me by telling me going to the doctor was her favorite part of the day.
Anyway, my visiting teacher Jennifer arrived for her appointment interrupting our doctor play. (We have a wonderful program known as visiting teaching in our church where we each look out for a couple other woman in our congregation. As visiting teachers, we try to visit or contact our teachees with our visiting teaching partner once or month or so and see how their life is going and if we can be of any help or special service. It is a wonderful way to make friends and serve each other.)
The girls were thrilled that my visiting teacher's teenage daughter was with her and enjoyed playing with her/bugging her to read them stories. And I had a lovely visit with my friend, so I didn't mind giving up my normal nap/chore/play/dinner prep time. Jennifer and I also work together in the Young Women's presidency at church, a group for girls ages 12-18, and I have enjoyed getting to know her and her wonderful family.
Mike arrived home around five and we used his new grill wok to make some delicious steak fajitas. While we prepped dinner, the girls were playing pretend. Kate's pretend is usually just dressing up and pretending to eat play food or coins (I don't know why she thinks coins are fun to pretend to eat, but she often offers me one). Maggie is encouraging Kate to become a little more sophisticated in her play. Today when I went down to see what they were up to, Maggie and Kate were packing bags with all their play food and dishes. I asked Maggie where they were going and was told "the Soda Shop." Later, it was to college and class. College is a recurring theme lately. Last week, Maggie and her cousin Ava were going to high school one minute and the next to college and to get married! Time really does fly. Then they took their play outside and played on the playset while Dad grilled. Kate loves to swing on the side bar of the swing set lately. She really is my little monkey.
Our fajitas really did turn out wonderfully. They were made even more amazing by the fact that I made fresh and delicious guacamole and pico de gallo to accompany them.
This is the best fajita marinade:
¼ cup fresh lime juice (about 3-4 limes)
1/3 cup water
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 large cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon salt
3 teaspoons apple cider or red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons soy sauce
½ teaspoons chili powder
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon liquid smoke
¼ teaspoon black pepper
1/8 teaspoon onion powder
I got it off my favorite go-to recipe blog,
melskitchencafe.blogspot.com, and have been using it for over a year. I usually use it on cut up chicken (or the occasional steak) in the skillet and it is always delicious. But over the grill? I felt like I was at a mid-scale restaurant. Up the decor and dinnerware and it would have been upscale. I was really glad that the top sirloin was on such a good sale today.
After dinner, it was
Family Home Evening. We are missing Family Home Evenings with our cousins this summer, but are so glad to have Mike around a little more. He still has school work, but not as many classes, as more of his work in online this summer. And responsibilities as president for Young Men's (the boys' youth organization) at church have eased a little right now and he isn't having to devote as many weekend hours, which is nice. We'll have to invite the cousins here!
I will have to film a Family Home Evening sometime because the girls are so cute. Or a Family Council. I love talking in an organized fashion to the girls and seeing how they react. Kate usually wanders around, randomly participating, and Maggie either gets really into the lesson or discussion or tries to take it over and lead it. She conducted family night tonight. She opened with the "Aloha!" that is tradition since Mike's parents' Hawaiian days. Then gave us a prayer and conducted the song (I love that both my girls have mimicked conducting soon after their first birthday). Mike gave us a lesson on reverence (we love the lessons from the
nursery manual) and I was again amazed by how much little kids understand and pick up on. Not long ago, Maggie told us she was giving the lesson and picked up the nursery manual and gave us an entire lesson on the prophet Joseph Smith using a picture from it as her prop. She knew the whole story. And last week when I gave a lesson on obedience and asked if she knew what it means to obey she said, "Umm, it's... like...to listen." (Obviously, I say "umm" and "like" too much.) Kate was so cute joining it for the action rhyme. She loves those now.
We ate yummy donuts for dessert and then rushed to get baths in before bedtime. Lately, Kate has started "swimming" in the tub (lying on her tummy and swishing her arms back and forth) and Maggie always wears her "goo-goo goggles" during bathtime (I don't know why she calls them that). Luckily, Kate has stopped her habit of parasailing on the towel bar in the tub every time she is put in the tub. She now only does it occasionally. And Mike was sweet enough to do the dishes for me while I was bathing the girls, even though he had already done much of the cooking.
After that, the girls pretended to hide for a few minutes under their hooded towels and we got pajamas on. Kate is always trying to get her own clothes on now and actually does a good job. The only problem is that she usually puts on clothes she finds in the dirty laundry and half the time they are Maggie's anyway. We had a mini-dance party to
Coconut Records, then we hurried to read scriptures and say prayers with Dad before he headed out to mow. We always sing a
Primary song, then read a few scriptures (anywhere from one to several, depending on the girls' moods) and say prayer. We sang
"Reverently, Quietly" tonight, but my favorite to hear Kate sing is
"I Lived in Heaven." She has an adorable way of holding out the last word/note in every line. What's really cute about it is she doesn't hit that many of the words, but she gets a lot of the pitches and watches your mouth carefully to try to catch the words she knows, all with a huge smile.
After Dad went out to mow, we did a quick pick-up to
"Clean-up" by Ralph's World and then read
Llama, Llama Red Pajama by Anna Dewdney,
one of the girls' favorite stories. Kate
LOVES to be read to and favorites over the past six months have included
Clip-Clop, Dr. Seuss's ABC, Goodnight Moon, Llama Llama, and
Katy Duck. The past month she has gotten increasingly reactive to stories and gets extremely concerned during a climax. She will make worried whimpers and even try to turn the page early or close the book sometimes.
My girls don't do well with conflict (unless they are causing it). We joked that's why Maggie loves
Little Bear so much: It's the perfect show. No conflict. No plot. Just happy things happening.
Well, after storytime, I turned on the girls' "songs" (they like to fall asleep to the Primary Songs CD) and we talked about our favorite parts of the day while I held Kate's hand for a couple minutes. Maggie always wants me to not only tell her my favorite part of the day and listen to hers, but also speculate as to what Kate's and Dad's favorite parts were and anyone else who happens to come to mind. I left when she was thinking about cookie-making, so I'm guessing she will wake up wanting to bake tomorrow. Kate was being goofy and hiding under her blanket when I left. Typical.
No two days are exactly the same around here, but that was our semi-typical day. Had it been an ideal day, I would have woken before the girls. Started some laundry first thing. Walked to the coffee shop to get some exercise. Done a "school-time" activity with Maggie. Practiced our scripture of the week (which usually turns into our scripture of the month). Finished my Monday chores. Practiced piano. Finished reading the manual to my camera. The list goes on. But hey, it was about as ideal as it gets. My ideal day is 36 hours long. So I just have to rotate through all my good ideas. :)
And now you all see why and are really glad that I don't journal every day. I'd be impressed if many of you get to this point.
