Mom Brain

I feel like being a mother has made me wise in ways that no other experience could. But it's also made me unbelievably stupid.

Once upon a time, I could write a cogent 5-paragraph essay discussing the impact of Steinbeck's novels on post-war America, solve college-level physics problems, and simultaneously sight-read four lines of music in three different clefs--and that was all before lunchtime.

Now I'm lucky if I can complete a sentence without some help from my 6-year-old:

Me: "Go put your dishes in the. . .um. . .the thing that cleans the, uh, things we put food on."
Elizabeth: (snickering) "The dishwasher?"
Me: "Um, yeah."

You're probably thinking the above example was an exaggeration for effect (shoot, there's a name for that*). Sadly, it's not. Nouns in particular are difficult for me, whether it's my kids' names** or the names of everyday items such as the. . .oh, you know, that thing that keeps food cold.

I'm not saying this to imply that being a mom is a waste of my skills or brain power. On the contrary, I believe that what I'm doing is truly valuable, and in many ways it's very mentally stimulating. My major was in early childhood education, and believe you me, there's no better way to learn how children learn than to follow them in their daily lives. I was absolutely giddy with delight at watching Elizabeth learn to read; it really is fascinating to watch the process, up close and personal. I guess one way to look at these last 6 years would be as a very long, very intense lab experience. Still, there's no denying that I've forgotten an awful lot of what I used to know.

What counts, I suppose, is that I remember the important things. I have committed to memory the phone numbers of Elizabeth's best friends, the PBS morning lineup, and the words to more picture books than I'd care to admit. I can tell you the incubation period and symptoms of the ten most common childhood illnesses. I've learned ways to coax even the most recalcitrant three-year-old into getting dressed. I can (and do) change diapers without fully waking up. I can simultaneously wrangle three children while grocery-shopping with a budget and without a list. I know where the binky is. So maybe my brain's not so flabby after all.

And when's the last time I needed to solve a quadratic equation, anyway?


*Hyperbole! Ha! Score one for me.

**I always mix up the girls' names, but that's to be expected. Poor Ben, though, has to contend with me forgetting not his name, but his gender. By day I do just fine, but come 2 AM when I'm handing him to Jared, I inevitably find myself saying, "Could you change her diaper?"

Quarterly Report

Let's see if I can bring you guys up to speed here.

December
December brought its usual whirlwind of holiday activity. Elizabeth turned 6, which makes me feel rather old. (I told Elizabeth this the other day, and she reassured me, "You're not really THAT old, Momma. Thirty is still really far away from one hundred.")



We celebrated Christmas in our usual manner: Christmas Eve with the Olsons, complete with absolute mayhem a live nativity, followed by Christmas morning with the Eppersons, complete with heart-attack-in-a-pan Christmas breakfast casserole.
I wasn't fast enough to get a photo of the casserole, but here's a cast photo of the nativity. This is truly the highlight of the Christmas season for me. I get such a kick out of it, and every year it just gets better. . .or at least, more entertaining. . .as we add more grandkids to the mix.

What made this Christmas especially fun is that Elizabeth is really starting to catch the excitement of choosing gifts and then keeping the secret. After Elizabeth received a Zhu Zhu Pet for her birthday, Anna began pining away for one of her own--so Elizabeth decided to give her one for Christmas. Throughout the rest of the month, whenever Anna would sigh wistfully and proclaim, "I just reeeally want a Zhu Zhu Pet. . .", Elizabeth would smile oh-so-sweetly and say, "Well, maybe you'll get one for Christmas." The look on Anna's face Christmas morning when she unwrapped "Peachy" was priceless:
On New Year's Eve we stayed home with the girls and celebrated with fondue. . .or, as Anna called it, "fun-do":
Can't argue with her; eating chocolate-dipped Rice Krispie treats is pretty darn fun to do.


January
At the beginning of January I finally got around to making an appointment for Anna with the ENT. We weren't too surprised when he recommended a T&A (tonsillectomy + adenoidectomy). Just two weeks later, Anna and I were up bright and early and headed to the new Primary Children's outpatient center in Riverton. They really do go the extra mile to make the whole experience as kid-friendly as possible, and Anna had an absolutely wonderful time. . .until the actual surgery, anyway. She got to ride in a wagon, put on special hospital jammies, play with all sorts of new toys. . .how fun!When all was ready for the "procedure", she got to ride a little car down the hall to the surgery suite, where she got out, hugged me, and followed the nurse into the operating room without so much as a backward glance.

Less than an hour later, they called me back to the recovery room, where Anna was just waking up. This was the worst part; I can only imagine what was going through her head as she woke up. I imagine she had the vague suspicion that she'd been completely duped--she'd been having such a fun day, and then those nice nurses and doctors had gone and done something to ruin it all. Once she was lucid enough to talk, she kept telling me, "I'm all done with this. Let's go home now."She was a lot happier at home, but the first few days of recovery were pretty rough. Thankfully, she was back to her usual self within a few weeks, and now she sleeps/eats/breathes so much more comfortably!

February

By February, Jared and I were both in full nesting mode. I expressed the urge by cooking and freezing 15 meals, purging the closets, stockpiling groceries, and scrubbing the house top to bottom. Jared, on the other hand, preferred to nest with the aid of a jackhammer and pipe cutter:

Laying the groundwork for the new downstairs bathroom. . .

Like last year, we made a cake on February 19th in memory of our little William. It's hard to believe it's been 2 years already; it seems like just yesterday. I had hoped to have the new baby before William's birthday, especially since by then I'd be past the point when I delivered my girls--but this kiddo had other ideas. . .

As the 40th week of my pregnancy started, I was getting impatient. Jared tried to encourage me by saying the baby would be here "any day now", but after a few weeks of hearing that I quit listening to him. My due date came; I spent it cooking meals to freeze and cleaning like crazy. I had some contractions start up at bedtime, but they never got closer together and they eventually fizzled out around 4 AM. Feeling rather let down (and huge, and just plain grouchy) I went to church. The umpteen comments I received there ("You're still pregnant?!?", "Aw, I was really hoping you'd have your baby this week.", "My daughter doesn't believe me that you've only got one baby in there.") didn't do much for my mood, and by bedtime I was feeling mighty discouraged. So discouraged that I refused to pay attention the contractions that started again late that night. I finally started to believe something might be up around 3 AM, though, and Jared called my mom to come sit with the girls. We arrived at the hospital around 5 AM, and our little boy made his debut just after noon:

Benjamin Everett Olson

Monday, February 28, 2011

9 lb. 6 oz. ~ 20 inches

Due to a slight fever and some concerning blood test results, Ben had to stay in the hospital an extra day to finish a course of antibiotics. Thankfully, aside from that he was perfectly healthy and was able to stay with me between IV rounds, and I was allowed to stay the extra night in a boarding room down the hall from the nursery. By Thursday morning he had finished the antibiotics and his initial blood culture had come back clean, so we headed home.


March
March flew by in a blur of diaper changes, baby-snuggling, endless laundry, and pinkeye (both girls caught it, but we managed to avoid giving it to Ben--phew!)


Somewhere amid the chaos, Jared turned thirty-two. We celebrated with a special dinner at home, including a chocolate cake lavishly decorated by the girls (it's just not a birthday cake without two pounds of rainbow sprinkles). The years have been kind to Jared, but he hasn't evaded them completely. A few weeks ago, Elizabeth was hanging out on our bed with Jared and I heard her counting. Jared asked her what she was doing, and she informed him that she was counting his gray hairs. She found twenty-six. I think she overlooked a few. ;)

April
We're adjusting to life with three. It's definitely been a challenge; now that we're outnumbered we've had to switch from a game of one-on-one to playing zone defense. It seems like the hampers are always full and the floors are always dirty--but I'm learning to be a little more "Zen" about it all. The girls adore Ben, although Anna still is a little confused: she tells me when she grows up she'll be Ben's mommy. For now she's getting lots of practice; from dressing to bathing to burping, I'm not allowed to do anything without her help.

And Ben is such a peach. His sisters had him beat in the sleep department at this age, but by day he's such a placid little fellow. He loves to snuggle, which I just relish, and I'm completely smitten with the faces he makes:

His usual expression: curious but skeptical.

Motherhood is hard work, but I get paid in baby smiles. Life is sweet.

Germ Warfare

I'm starting this at 8:45 AM on a Tuesday; very different than my usual 10-PM-on-a-Sunday-night routine. Why, you ask? Well, mostly because I don't have the energy to stand (it's been one of those weeks) so I figured I'd do something productive while I sit.

One of those weeks, you say? Why, yes. It all started last week on Monday morning. Around 2 AM on Monday morning, when Anna woke up crying and coughing and running a fever. I spent the better parts of Monday through Wednesday snuggling a feverish toddler, wielding the bulb syringe, and keeping the humidifier filled. (On the plus side, she spent a good 2-3 hours every day napping. So did I.) By Thursday, she was feeling better. . .thank goodness, because we had Elizabeth's parent/teacher conference. (All is going well; Mrs. H. says Elizabeth has adjusted beautifully to kindergarten, is a good listener, doesn't run with scissors or eat glue, etc.)

Since Anna was feeling better and Jared was home for the day, after our parent conference I figured I'd take a trip to the mall to shop for some much-needed maternity clothes. When it comes to shopping, Elizabeth could take it or leave, but Anna is always, always up for a trip to the store. Any store. The kid loves to shop. (She's so stereotypically female that it's not even funny; her favorite activities around the house are cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry, and she literally BEGS me to take her to the store. Hoo, boy.) So, I left Elizabeth at home with Jared, and Anna and I headed to the mall. As I walked across the parking lot, I slipped and fell flat on my tush, managing to scrape about an inch of skin off the top of my foot in the process. Not to be deterred (hey, I had a hot coupon!), I dusted myself off and marched into Old Navy, washed off my foot in the bathroom and begged a Band-Aid off of one of the employees, and did my shopping.

Friday and Saturday I limped along (literally) as I took care of Elizabeth and myself. . .we were now both sick with Anna's cold. By Sunday, we were in pretty bad shape; my foot was getting worse and Elizabeth was complaining of an earache. I decided I'd spare Elizabeth from having to wait a miserable hour at the urgent care clinic and would take her to her doctor the next morning instead, and I hobbled alone to the InstaCare to see if maybe I'd fractured something. The X-ray came back clear, but the doctor was sufficiently impressed by my "flesh wound" to send me home with a surgical scrub brush and some Hibiclens to help stave off gangrene.

Monday morning I took Elizabeth to her doctor, where my suspicions of an ear infection were confirmed. . .along with a bonus: strep throat! Sigh. This isn't the first time that she's suffered with strep throat for 3-4 days before I get around to taking her to the doc, because I don't realize what it is, and of course I feel just terrible when we find out. (And, ironically, the one time I took her in because I thought she had strep throat, it was mono.) It might make my job easier if she got the "classic" strep throat symptoms like, say, a SORE THROAT. But I'm learning. The most reliable indicator of her having strep is that she cries. A lot. Poor girl. I completely understand; I remember the last time I had strep throat, and I just felt like crying all the time too!

And that brings us to today. Elizabeth is still home from school, but she's off the couch and looks tremendously better. Anna is more or less back to her usual self and I'm keeping my fingers crossed she doesn't come down with strep, too. Jared, of course, is feeling fine; a measly cold virus does nothing to him. (Don't tell him, but I totally let Elizabeth nap on his side of the bed yesterday, half-hoping that he'd catch strep throat from the germs she drooled all over his pillow. . .the man could use a little empathy, is all I'm sayin'.) I'm walking just about normally again, and my cold is mostly gone. After 9 straight nights of getting up every few hours to answer cries, suction noses, fetch drinks of water, administer medicine, and refill humidifiers, I'm looking forward to some decent sleep tonight with only my pregnancy-induced heartburn and twice-nightly potty trips to disturb me.

Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time for my wound debridement.

Stuff My Kids Say

Elizabeth: (after taking a sip of Sprite) "It just tastes like there's electricity in my mouth!"

Anna: (driving home late one night) "Look. . .when it's bedtime, everyfing SHINES."



One day I took the girls to a store, and as we walked in, somebody walking out triggered the security alarm. Elizabeth asked what that sound was, and I explained: "They put special tags on the clothes, so that if you walk out of the store without paying for the clothes, the alarm goes off." Elizabeth's face lit up and said, "Oh! And if you walk out without the tags, then the alarm goes ON!"



Elizabeth: "Sometimes it feels like there's a bug crawling up my spine."

Anna: (soberly) "Mommy, I don't want snakes on me." (Still not sure what this was all about. There were no snakes, real or otherwise, anywhere NEAR her when she said this. . .)

When Elizabeth first started kindergarten, she was obsessed with "the rules" for the first few weeks. Each day she'd come home and tell me the rules she'd learned--school rules, classroom rules, PE rules, etc. One afternoon she was playing with Anna, who, being three, couldn't care less about rules and such, and refused to do anything Elizabeth told her. Exasperated, Elizabeth looked straight at her and said in her most grown-up voice, "Anna. There. Are. RULES."

Elizabeth: (yawn) "I'm as tired as a bat in the morning. . ."

Anna: "Mommy, you gotfor your purse!" (In Anna-ese, gotfor = forgot)



One afternoon we let the girls play with the hose, and they flooded the lower half of our backyard, transforming it from a dirt pit to a mud pit. They wallowed in the mud for awhile, and when I told Anna it was time to go inside and get into the tub, she would have none of it. "No," she told me, "Let's pretend DIS be da baff-tub!"

Summer Fun

I know, I know, every summer I seem to forget all about the blog. Just read, and you'll see why I've been slacking this time.

June: Anna turned 3 years old. We had a little shindig at our house, complete with her chocolate-cake-with-bananas-and-blue-polka-dots, as requested:




Our Little Bear is so very good at being three. Delightful, silly, mischievous, stubborn, affectionate. . .She continues to be a champion mess-maker as well as the family clown and resident fashionista.


She's a great little sister; she absolutely adores Elizabeth and also knows exactly how to push her buttons to annoy her. In so many ways I'm reminded of Kellie and me when I see these two play together. . .and that's encouraging. For as much as Kellie and I drove each other crazy as kids, we grew up to be friends after all. I hope the same will be true for Elizabeth and Anna. There's nothing quite like a sister, especially when you're all grown up.




At the end of June, we spent a week at Bear Lake with my mom's side of the family, the Torgersens. The water was beautiful, the beach was perfect for sandcastles, there were cousins and grandparents and puppies and all sorts of fun to be had. . .








Being Torgersens, we spent a LOT of time just talking, joking, and laughing. . .LOUDLY. And you've never really played Rock Band till you've played it with Torgersens. Outside. At 11 PM.




Elizabeth lost a tooth during our stay, with a little help from a stray Frisbee. The tooth was already dangling by a thread; I was actually grateful to the Frisbee for knocking that sucker out already. And then on the last day at the lake, Elizabeth's newest buddy Adelyn (my cousin's little girl) lost the same tooth:



We had so much fun--myself included, despite the morning sickness* that was just starting to take hold (yep, we found out the week before the vacation that I'm expecting again!)

July: Just as my morning* sickness really kicked in, the rest of the family came down with. . .wait for it. . .mononucleosis**. I feel pretty lousy during my first trimester, but I can usually depend on Jared to pick up the slack in the evenings when he's home. However, he was so wiped out that he was every bit as useless as I was. And by the time Jared came down with it, the girls were back to their normal, energetic tear-the-house-apart selves. You can just imagine what our house looked like after three weeks of being more or less run by a 5- and 3-year-old. I wish I had some pictures, really. I think at one point they were wearing dress-ups to bed because they had no clean pajamas, and I know there were more than a few days where at least two of our three meals consisted of cereal.

Um, yeah, no actual photos for July.
But here's a photo of our lovely new made-over bedroom,
where we were hunkered down for most of the month.
Not that it looked anywhere as neat and tidy as this, mind you:

August: Ahh, finally, we're feeling human again! Jared has been working on the backyard (natch) and I've been working to undo the damage of my two-month hiatus from housework, taking the girls to the doctor (3 shots, darn!) and dentist (no cavities, yeah!) and swimming lessons, and getting Elizabeth ready for kindergarten. I can't believe my little girl is going to school! She is unbelievably excited. So am I. . .mostly.



*Morning sickness, hah. I don't know about the rest of you ladies, but my "morning" sickness would be more aptly called "all-day-and-especially-at-night-when-you're-trying-desperately-to-sleep" sickness.

**We think. Elizabeth's test actually came back negative, but her little friend got sick a week later with the same symptoms and her test was positive. And then Jared was laid so low that we have a hard time thinking of anything else it COULD have been. I told him he should've kissed more girls in high school, so he could've gotten it then and spared me the inconvenience.

May Days

What's new with us this week? Well, Jared is still plugging away on the foundation, with a few pallets of cinderblock left to lay before we can start moving dirt and finish grading the backyard. His hands and arms are a testament to the many hours of hard work he's been putting into this project. I tell ya, if Jocke had never left the family farm in South Dakota, Jared would have been completely in his element there. (Of course, he'd also have ended up one of those crusty old Norwegian bachelor farmers, since he never would have met me. . .)

I finished the new garden bed in the front yard. It's looking a little better now that I've filled in all the gaps with annuals, but I'm afraid I completely did in the daisies that I moved in the process. There's still another bunch waiting to be divided and transplanted, so maybe I'll get it right next time. My plan now is to overhaul the foundation bed--move the rose bushes, put a gravel pathway along the back, and turn the front into a shrubbery (One that looks nice. And not too expensive.)

Elizabeth has one week left of preschool and is already peppering me with questions about kindergarten--mostly WHEN DOES IT START?!? It's going to take all of my energy just to keep her busy this summer, I can tell. Weekly trips to the library should go a long way toward that; she's becoming quite a little bookworm. We found a series that she has been devouring. Actually, it's a series of series. First there were the Rainbow Fairies (one book for each color of the rainbow), and now the author has gone on to write series about the Gemstone Fairies, Weather Fairies, Days of the Week Fairies, Pet Fairies, Music Fairies. . .and it goes on. Maybe not the caliber of writing I'd hoped for, but at least the author is prolific!

Anna is turning three in just a few short weeks, though it's hard for me to believe. I've been asking her what she wants for her birthday. Her requests thus far:
1) a banana cake
. . .with chocolate
. . .and polka dots.
. . .BLUE polka dots ("like my eyes are blue")
2) a tiny house
Thanks to her big sister, Anna is quite advanced in the arts of arguing and persuading. The other day I took her to run errands, and she asked if I would take her to "the big grocery store". I said no, but we were going to Target, which is very much like a big grocery store. She replied, "But Target doesn't look like a big grocery store to ME." Again I said no, and she decided to try a different tactic: "But Mommy, the big grocery store has floooowers. And the big grocery store has fruuuuuit." What she should've pointed out is that the big grocery store also has drop-in child care; by that point I was about ready to turn her over to someone else for awhile.

We've also had someone new at our house this weekend: Duncan, Sarah and Seamus' mini Dachsund puppy, has been staying with us while S&S have been in San Francisco. He's about as adorable as they come, and we've had a lot of fun with him this weekend. His only major flaw is that he refuses to poop where he's supposed to--but then again, so does Anna, and we still think she's pretty wonderful, so I suppose I can excuse him as well.

We're looking forward to a wonderful June, starting with Anna's birthday and culminating in a campout/reunion with my mom's side of the family. Whew. All those Torgersens in one place at one time. Bear Lake won't know what hit it.

Date Night

On Friday Jared and I went on a "mini-cation" without the girls. They spent the evening with Aunt Amy and then went to sleep over at Nonny's house while Jared and I enjoyed a nice date night downtown. I'm embarrassed to tell you when our last night out together was. (Wait, do we get to count the adult session of Stake Conference? Sweet. Then we've had TWO dates this year!)

Anyway, some thoughts on our date night:

1) Why does movie popcorn smell so darn good? I rarely buy it, because there's something in the butter-flavored liquid topping that makes me queasy. But oh, that smell is intoxicating. Right up there with new crayons, Pink Pearl erasers, and Play-Doh.

2) Peanut butter M&M's are still one of the best candies ever created.
3) The Starburst jelly bean is no slouch, either.
4) Eating a Starburst jelly bean when you're expecting a peanut butter M&M is startlingly disappointing.
5) We saw "Babies", which documents the first year in the life of four babies from around the world. What I learned from the movie: Parenthood presents challenges regardless of culture, but in many regards we American moms have got it pretty easy. I've never had to skin a dog for dinner.

6) Also, I can handle a little innocent nudity when it's part of the culture--say, among the indigenous people of Namibia who always walk around shirtless and, well, don't even OWN shirts. But I'm sorry, if you're an upper-middle-class Caucasian woman in San Francisco you don't have an excuse. I don't care if it's your hot tub.


7) The ambience at Wasatch Pizza may be lacking, but the pizza is sure tasty.
8) Sausage gives me a wicked headache. Next time, this:



9) You know you've arrived when you can afford a room at a hotel with complementary bathrobes.


10) Even at 9 PM, long after the last wurst has been served, Siegfried's will still smell like brats and sauerkraut. . .which is a little disturbing when you're eating chocolate raspberry cake.


11) I wish we had a king-sized bed at home. Compared to our queen bed, it felt kinda like this:



12) There are too many TV channels out there. We watched an intriguing program at 9 AM on the History channel called Alien Engineering. This whole show was based on the premise that UFOs *do* exist and went on to explain just how they were able to travel thousands of light years, fly silently, defeat inertia, etc. The fact that a show like this managed to score air time is proof positive that there must be a vast surplus of programming slots needing to be filled.


13) Question 1: Why are UFOs almost always shaped like saucers, instead of the more traditional rocket shape? Then again, THEY'RE the ones who've accomplished intergalactic space travel, so maybe the real question is:
14) Question 2: Since alien technology is so obviously superior to ours, how come NASA hasn't tried to replicate the flying saucer design?
15) Question 3: Did that theoretical physicist just say "wet smear"? Ew.

16) Absence makes the heart grow fonder, at least until the kids come down from the "high" they've been riding while you were gone and realize their parents are kind of boring. I think by the time they'd been home for two or three hours, they were ready for me to take them back to Nonny's. So was I.

Thanks again to our wonderful babysitters. We really owe you!