The lusty month of May

(Name that musical)
I know there is another song from a musical about May, but I couldn't remember it. So we'll go with this one for now. The flowers, garden plants, bugs and birds have all come alive. I guess they're being lusty :) I have certainly been loving spring this year- I guess that's a type of lust. I lust after spring all winter long.

We've been eating fresh lettuce out of the garden every night. Its been fun. I've never been much of a salad person, but I've got a lot of lettuce to work through, so I'm trying to learn. Please pass on any recipes you like.

The weather has been gorgeous. I have been so incredibly grateful for our home and neighborhood recently. I love the freedom that my kids can have outside because of where we live. One of these days I may even get myself motivated to exercise again, but for now 4-5 loops around our circle sure feels good. We're going to be spending a lot of time in our neighborhood stream as it gets hotter.
 I have loved my one on one time with Eli as Hadley has been in preschool. As we're starting to build early intervention into our schedule, it has been good to be consciously working with him to encourage his communication. I was encouraged to "not anticipate his needs", to force him to tell me what he wants. Oh that is so hard. I feel like I have spent the last 3.5 years of parenting trying to anticipate needs and to show my kids that I'm in touch with what they are thinking and feeling. Since Eli doesn't talk, I spend so much time watching him for any cues of what he is thinking about so I can interact with him in his desired way. It is hard to hold back my desire to help and remove frustration. This is going to be quite the process for the whole family.


This picture shows a fun predicament Eli got himself into a few weeks ago. He sure loves to play up in the food storage cabinet whenever he can. He transitioned into a toddler bed seamlessly a few weeks ago. He is such a master at entertaining himself throughout the day. I am so grateful for his attention span and sense of curiosity. I love watching him run around the kitchen table with a ribbon streaming from his hand, laughing and laughing as Hadley chases him. I am also so grateful for 2 kids that nap like champions because I need a nap every day too.

It has seemed really busy around here recently with the end of the year tutoring boom and lots of packed weekends. Really the days are filled with lots of playing time and house projects. Hadley can finally play modified versions of uno, blokus, memory, and sequence, so I've been enjoying some nice brain-game time with her. Her writing is becoming more confident and its fun to watch her decode words around her. Rhyming words are really exciting to her and she is starting the joke phase where she just says something ridiculous and calls it a joke (ie cows say baa- only funny because of the developmental jump it shows she's making). She even seems to understand the irony sometimes when I am sarcastic. Mother May I and Hide and Go Seek are also current favorites. She gets to give the Article of Faith tomorrow in church, so we've been practicing that every day this week. She finally had it memorized yesterday. Here she is, so proud of herself.

She was singing me the Primary song: I Know My Father Lives a few weeks ago, when all of a sudden I realized that she was also singing I know my Mother lives, I know my Brother lives, I know my Grandma lives, etc. I took this video a little late in the process, but its a moment I wanted to remember. 

 Here we are on Mother's Day. I ran away to a Church women's retreat for the weekend and came home to a clean home, happy kids, homemade cream puffs. I'm such a lucky lady.

I'm grateful for the examples of my mother, grandmother and mother-in-law of how to balance competing demands on their time throughout their lives. I'm grateful for their examples of love and sacrifice for their families.
I'm also grateful to my husband for encouraging me to become a mother. While there are other titles that have come much easier to me, I am learning to love being a mother. I'm humbled by the privilege it is to raise these two incredible children. They test me and stretch me in ways that frighten and amaze me. I have so much to learn about being a better mother to them, but I am trying and I'm hopeful that 30 years down the road they will love me as much as I love my mother.
Now I'm off to bed because I don't know if I can make it 30 more years if I don't start sleeping more.